Forum Discussion

7 years ago

Recycling old content and a lack of creativity in development

So Jungle Adventure just came out, and I think most of us know it recycles merchant tables and food stalls from City Living. This isn't the first time either, as Pets recycled those exact same assets.

My personal stance on recycling content goes like this: if a pack manages to deliver quality content, then recycling existing content can be warranted if smaller features are recycled. If someone pointed out content that Vampires recycled for example, I would hesitate to pass judgement because Vampires was a solid pack. I have no way of knowing why they chose to recycle it, but I believe in good faith and benefit of the doubt, so if the pack is solid and there's recycled content, I'll assume they needed to recycle content so they could focus on putting more effort elsewhere.

However, the amount of content being recycled or how frequently they get recycled is at times....rather concerning. The food stalls and merchant tables as examples make sense to me to recycle because they serve as vendors and there's little to no benefit of remaking that system. At the same time though, I would also debate the value of giving us 237868 meals that are all functionally identical. While it's wise to recycle the food stalls themselves since their assets and coding all work, I also have to question why food is supposed to be a decent chunk of a pack to begin with. Are we recycling it because there's a clear demand for it and we're trying to work efficiently, or are we recycling it because the development of Sims 4 prioritizes features that we can recycle just to save on costs? Development should be about making a fun pack, not about reducing the development budget as much as possible. Sometimes it feels like the latter and like the team has development sessions where they ask "what would be cheap and easy to make given the assets that we already have?" I might be consider that understandable if this were a small indie company developing this game....but this is one of the largest development companies in the world with a top 10 best-selling game franchise.

There's similar cases with clothing styles and textures. How many times has a new top released and people have pointed out how outrageously similar it was to another pre-existing top? Do I even need to link the Bear costumes or the Super llama costumes? Reskinning textures continues with Jungle Adventures. This made the rounds on another Sims forum:

https://i.imgur.com/KrL8k0T.png

With that image? I feel like an argument can be made they had to do it since they cannot use content from Get Together or expect that all users have it; they MUST copy-paste it to be able to use it in the pack. However, I feel the problem with things such as above is just how frequently the recycling of assets and features occurs. It's one of those cases where the straw can break the camel's back, and seeing recycled content EVERYWHERE you turn can absolutely make you lose faith in the game and it's future. I would shrug at that above image normally and argue they NEED to copypaste it to be able to use it in this pack.....but that was the argument with the Superllama costume in City Living....and that was the argument with the bear costume in Parenthood. Eventually it hits a point where - as I said - I have to question if decisions aren't being made based on what saves production costs rather than on what makes sense or would be neat. The Superllama costume being recycled could've been seen as an opportunity to make a Batgnome costume for example, or Parenthood could've been seen as a chance to create pony costumes. Instead we didn't get that. We got more of the same. Not a big deal for the individual packs perhaps, but yes it adds up to long-term disappointment. And again, it's not just textures or clothing...

The vet career for example recycles many animations from the scientist and doctor careers, the Jungle puzzles themselves seem to try and incorporate existing animations, and don't even get me started on the amount of social animations that are visually/audibly/functionally identical. I remember being disappointed in Sims 3 when personality traits like Daredevil and Evil were mostly just changes to the text names of their interactions, but wow, Sims 4 is seriously putting those two to shame with a record high of recycled socials. There was a time when each new pack had ~2 new socials that were functionally unique with unique animations, but now...? I had to do a double take when I realized the dance in Jungle Adventures is ACTUALLY NEW and doesn't seem to be a re-hashed combination of existing animations in any way, shape or form, nor did it seem poorly done or basic. No, it felt like they went all out and gave that animation their all. I feel like this is the first time that's happened in a while, so kudos to that, it's just a shame it's an exception to the rule.

Even concepts seem to get recycled. With this it's less about recycling assets, but rather a lack of creativity. In Outdoor Retreat, there's basically nothing to do there and no motivation to go there unless you want to collect. Collect plants, collect insects, collect fish. Otherwise, the area is almost entirely devoid of any motivation to be there. Fast forward to Jungle Adventure, and once again Sims 4 thinks it's a collectathon. There's two collections, and both aspirations seem to more or less revolve around collecting. I feel like collecting things is their go-to activity for almost every pack these days, and personally, I hate it. Collecting is not something with a long-term benefit that helps flesh out my sim. It's just a time kill that has no effects whatsoever once finished.

To me, the biggest offender has to be the Vet Career and the entirety of the retail system. It amazes me that there was not more outrage about this.

Get to Work released, people tried out retail, it was terrible. Complaints included that both customers and employees seemed to do nothing at all, basic interactions with customers took ages, and employees just simply weren't doing their job. Fast forward to today, they still haven't patched or repaired that system in any way whatsoever. That portion of Get To Work remains broken and an absolute chore to participate in.

A broken feature is one thing. Having the audacity to recycle a broken feature and demand $40 for it....? Whoa. I seriously cannot believe there was not outrage over this. Browse the forums and sure enough, you'll see very familiar complaints. "My Vet employees aren't working! They just stand around!" This is the exact same issue. They copy-pasted the retail system, bugs and all. They absolutely should've known this would've happened. This is a case where either they directly knew this might happen, or they should've known and the idea that they couldn't anticipate this is ridiculous.

Above I asked the question of whether assets are recycled because they make sense, or if assets are recycled because content is planned out in such a way that allows for it. AKA, if we had a choice between a new pack revolving around Sumo Wrestling or a new pack involving being a caterer, they'd absolutely do the caterer pack strictly because they get to save on costs while the Sumo wrestling would demand new assets. That's my concern: that the person behind the steering wheel of Sims 4 isn't asking "what would be fun to play," but rather "how can I take this work I already did and extend it," with budgeting taking priority over fun and gameplay. Looking at how "new" (functionally identical) foods have become a theme since Dine Out and how the Vet career recycled retail despite how overwhelmingly obvious that wasn't a good idea, combined with all the other examples of recycled content above, I struggle to see how budgeting and cutting corners is not a company policy for this game.

I suppose my question at this point would be simple to word, difficult to answer: why?

Why does this game constantly feel underfunded, as if the upper management refuses to secure funds for it OR insists more profit can be made via cutting corners?

Why is content recycled so frequently? I don't recall this ever happening with any of the past Sims games. Recycling a single tidbit of content in past games was really noticeable since it was so rare (example, laundry being in both Ambitions and University Life), but here I feel like the only pack not recycling content at all since Get Together is - big surprise - vampires.

Why are concepts that we know to be flawed or buggy being recycled? If I ask myself this question, the only answer I can come up with is "money lol." There is simply no other motivation to recycle that Vet career and lo and behold the bugs weren't fixed at all.

And to the community itself: why are we not more critical of this? As I said, I can understand recycling certain assets. Sometimes it just makes sense and saves on time. I wouldn't expect new animations for excavation sites because we already have a perfectly good digging animation that suits it. However, I remain amazed they got away with recycling that Vet career (and all it's bugs) and I remain amazed how many of the animations/audio files/gameplay effects of social interactions are 100% identical.

Personally, I want more, and I doubt I'm the only one. I'd love to hear thoughts from others and how they feel about the recycled content, because I feel this seriously harms the quality of future packs and the game as a whole when future content seems HEAVILY reliant on what's easiest to copy and paste.

MidnightAura86
New Spectator
7 years ago
That photo is lazy. I’m sorry but it is. There can be no defending that. I’m not interested I’m debating the perils of the previous games. I don’t care. This is about the sims 4. @DeservedCriticism is correct, it’s just a copy and paste job and it’s pretty poor.
JackJack_Morris
7 years ago
"@DeservedCriticism;c-16358873" wrote:
@jackjack_k Two things:

1) Why do you treat this like a competition to be less bad? I name a problem with Sims 4, and you immediately start criticizing Sims 3. Why? Just because the other games have lowpoints does NOT absolve Sims 4 of any problems. BOTH are entirely capable of being guilty of the same mistakes. I even touched on this and criticized both Daredevil and Evil traits in Sims 3 for not actually providing new content, but rather just renaming the text names for interactions. The problem is we're at a new Sims game and that problem has worsened significantly instead of gone away. Another great example is that the recycling of the Vet career reminds me of Island Paradise: a pack released that was buggy and nonfunctional, and EA does nothing to fix it. It doesn't excuse the Vet career, it just makes it more outrageous that such practices continue. And no, Generations was not my favorite pack and you touch on why that is.

I have no desire to go into detail of every flaw in past games though because this isn't about them, this is about Sims 4. Highlighting those past flaws is of limited use because those games are done, whereas Sims 4 can still benefit from feedback. The only interest I have in mentioning past games is to showcase that the frequency of recycling has absolutely spiked.

There's even this ridiculous double standard here:

The Sims 3 literally sold content twice (Hot Tubs, Washers, Dryers to name a few)

You mean the ones with vastly different designs? In packs where there was enough raw content for this to be irrelevant? By your logic here, Sims 4 is reselling us content every time they make a new bed variant; those were new variants, not direct copies. You don't see me complaining about new bed designs because they're new; yes I would complain if a bed had the exact same cell and design but got re-released with slightly different colors, though.

Even the presentation is different: Late Night releases a new type of Hot Tub, and no it's not blasted all over the streams and trailers as though the hot tub is somehow a "major" selling point of the pack. They new it was minor and kept it as such. The same cannot be said for these Food stands, as making "new cultural food" is practically becoming a running gag at this point. They've done this thrice now. Heck, even the recycled bear costume and recycled Superllama costume were used in pack previews and streams with the devs saying "look how neat this is!" There's a very different tone in the execution of recycled content: when past games did it, they didn't draw attention to it because the devs understood recycled content isn't exciting. Here? There's basically a 50-50 shot the recycled content will be presented as a major feature of the pack.

What's the difference between that and reusing Food Vendors or Market tables? Oh I know, EA basically included them for free with JA.

So Sims 3 releases several hot tubs with different aesthetic designs in multiple packs and this is "reselling old content," but if Jungle Adventures reuses food stalls, that's "including them for free?" Yeah seems legit, makes perfect sense.

2) I've said this before, but your entire post is just statements with bold claims, but zero support, arguments or evidence. You absolutely have a habit of this:

"For C&D, the Vet Career is nothing like the Retail or Restaurant career." *changes subject*

"What's the difference between that and reusing Food Vendors or Market tables? Oh I know, EA basically included them for free with JA. Considering it has numerous gameplay items, more than any Game Pack before." *changes subject*

"And the market stalls in CL and C&D still offer new content." *changes subject*

You've not addressed a word of what I said or done anything to even support your own stances. I don't know what you're expecting to come of your post since you leave people with nothing to discuss. You haven't refuted a word of any of my arguments. You've just said "the vet career is completely different" and that's your argument I guess, but that's not really an argument because you've done nothing to point out how it's different.

What I'm saying and what I'm arguing is this: why does the EXACT bug that pops up in GTW retail workers resurface in the Vet career? They've had three years to fix the retail system and they haven't done it. On top of that, they're ready and willing to copypaste it despite knowing the system is heavily flawed. It's lazy, it results in sub-par buggy content, and it's downright insulting to see such content repeated with zero improvements or even bug fixes. Why on earth should I give them my money for repeat content that doesn't even work right? That's like if I went to an auto dealer and they sold me a lemon of a Red Honda Accord that has troubles with starting the engine, and then one year later when I'm sick of dealing with it, I go back to the same auto dealer and they greet me with "so I heard you were unsatisfied with your Red Honda Accord with engine problems. Wanna buy a BLUE Honda Accord with engine problems?" No, no I don't. No one in their right mind would go back to that same auto dealer, nor would they trust to purchase another Honda Accord from them. That sums up my stance with this game wonderfully: I have opted out of multiple packs specifically because they recycle content to function as main features, and I don't think that warrants a purchase.

I would have absolutely nothing against them recycling that retail system if it were good, stable, and saw regular improvements each time it was reused. This is not the case. You touched on the professions system of Sims 3 and yeah, there's your difference: that system worked (individual careers such as Ghost Hunter had individual bugs, yes, but there was no universal bug that was a guarentee to afflict all active careers), this system doesn't. The quality of retail system that we got in 2017 is more or less the same as the quality of the system in 2015. We are not moving forward, we're going in circles, and that's a severe problem. It makes the game look and feel like a blatant cash-grab too.

How many times is the recycling of content too much? Food stalls have been used three times now, with the concept of "new recipes" as a major feature having been used four times. I do not care about the cheaply drawn food on my Sim's plate. It's completely irrelevant to me, and yet it's four times now they've tried to sell this stuff to us as a major feature. That's my concern: that this is just gonna continue, and that recycled content is actually behind the steering wheel with this game, directly playing a large role in what packs get made and what packs get skipped.

1) It's not a comparison to be "less bad" because The Sims 4 isn't recycling any content that takes up slots for new content. This is how DLC works for any game. It's only an issue if Jungle Adventure, for example, completely got rid of the jungle area, and just gave us a new world with the same content. Instead, it took what it already built, re-used some of it, and then gave us a whole new GP over the top.
You can't also "recycle a vet career" when we didn't have a Vet career. They reused the Business system, but The Sims 1 - 3 all reused systems too. If the new content was "run a vet store" then I could understand the backlash. But a Vet operates nothing like Retail, apart from the fact it shares a UI. DLC for games reuses existing content and builds upon it. A lot of what you're saying was "recycled" was built into the base game coding.

2) The point here is, they didn't just sell you new laundry designs, they literally made you pay for the "development" of laundry twice. At most, those new laundry items on the store should have been a $3 DLC pack (16 items). Instead they make you pay $10, because they're making you pay for the development of Laundry twice. Adding Laundry into new Expansions is fine. But asking $10 alone for Laundry even if you already paid for it previously, is a stretch. EA should have just bundled those new designs into EPs/SPs or made them much cheaper than $10. At $10, you're past the point of "oh hey, here's some new laundry designs" to "hey please pay for Laundry twice".

3) The food stalls didn't take up new gameplay slots, so again, the faux outrage trend is for teenagers who just discovered Twitter, not for those who can put 2 and 2 together and realise they didn't sacrifice new gameplay, to reintroduce old gameplay. The market without the Food stands would have been less interesting, and therefore is a welcome addition to Jungle Adventure. They also sell new foods, not existing foods. And for those who like Cooking, adds a huge new range of foods to cook. It can also be used in Dine Out, and a brand new type of Restaurant can be made also. There's substantial new content, considering it's recycled, and at this point doesn't even take up development time of the pack.

4) How about you point out how the Retail and the Vet system is the same? Considering you played C&D on a friends computer, perhaps you may have not actually played it for yourself. Tell me what is the same? All I see is a UI being reused.

(PS I love how you can write essays when you want to, but then always ask people who reply to your threads to prove themselves, even though your the one who's supposed to prove what you say to begin with).

5) "I've addressed nothing of what you said" um... okay then.

6) What's broken with the Retail system or Vet system. They work fine for me. Dine Out has an issue with Sims getting up to chat with each other, but the Vet career and Retail career work fine for me. You don't even talk about the bug in question.

7) The Profession system did have bugs though. There's actually a bug where if your Profession requires use of a Rabbit Hole, it only works in worlds that don't have combo rabbit holes (which every world does beyond Ambitions). So if you're playing with Bridgeport or later, Professions don't work unless you replace the combo rabbit holes with base game ones. Also, that basically means that unless you're willing to use base game rabbit holes, the whole Profession System is broken. EA became aware of this, and basically made sure that future professions didn't require Rabbit holes. Nice of them eh?

8) They're not selling Food stalls a major feature. That's full of it even for you. They are shown for less than a second in the announcement trailer. Literally blink and you miss it. It's also not even mentioned on the Origin page as more than a blip.

That seems to be your issue. You get focused too much on one thing, that it clouds your vision for everything else that's going on.

Jungle Adventure literally came with more Build/Buy and CAS items, and also more unique gameplay items (if we include the gameplay items found in BuyDebug from the Jungle/Temple) than a whole Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion (which is when EA made EPs $40 btw) for $20, and you're coming in with "um we've had these 3 things before".

Obviously, Bon Voyage has more on it's side with Gameplay features (something that BA did really well), but that's quite a feat for $20 and all you can think about is the smallest, most unnecessary things ever and making them out to be the worst thing in gaming history.
astridentanja
7 years ago
"jackjack_k;c-16358924" wrote:
"@JoAnne65;c-16358829" wrote:
"Brindleton;c-16358379" wrote:
Well, Sims 3 had Late Night/Showtime reusing the same fame system (one of them being completely dedicated to the fame system) + vampires being a life state in both Late Night and Supernatural...so compared to that, the recycling in the Sims 4 looks pretty tame to me.

Apart from the fact the OP already covers it started with Sims 3, Showtime didn’t have the same fame system? Fame in LN meant scandal, free gifts and paparazzi. Fame in Showtime meant performing for larger audiences in different, larger venues (much more fun as far as I’m concerned). And Supernatural offered four other life states and just refined - and therefore patched in - the already existing vampire. In fact adding new gameplay to them.

@jackjack_k I never played the Daycare profession, but doesn’t that feature also add a mechanism to run a Daycare? (I hated the SP’s with yet another hot tub or barbecue by the way, so again, how does this adress what the OP wants to discuss: it’s annoying when it happens too often and seems to become a habit rather than an exception; is it really that hard to stay on topic?)

The point is, you guys are complaining about EA recycling content instead of new content, when they are ACTUALLY recycling old content, while also giving us new content alongside, not instead of.

There is a huge difference between "recycling old content" which takes up slots and "recycling old content" without sacrificing any new content.

This was never an issue when The Sims 3 or The Sims 2 (heck even The Sims 1 did it), so why is it an issue now? And my point is, there was actually more to be angry about back then there is now.

So why the faux outrage?

The OP explains that perfectly. The subject is not ‘Sims 4 stinks’, the subject is ‘should we accept this happening more and more, even when it concerns features that turned out to be flawed’. By the sound of it you actually agree with the OP if it already bothered you in Sims 3 and 2.
AFlyingNun
7 years ago
"jackjack_k;c-16358964" wrote:
"@DeservedCriticism;c-16358873" wrote:
@jackjack_k Two things:

1) Why do you treat this like a competition to be less bad? I name a problem with Sims 4, and you immediately start criticizing Sims 3. Why? Just because the other games have lowpoints does NOT absolve Sims 4 of any problems. BOTH are entirely capable of being guilty of the same mistakes. I even touched on this and criticized both Daredevil and Evil traits in Sims 3 for not actually providing new content, but rather just renaming the text names for interactions. The problem is we're at a new Sims game and that problem has worsened significantly instead of gone away. Another great example is that the recycling of the Vet career reminds me of Island Paradise: a pack released that was buggy and nonfunctional, and EA does nothing to fix it. It doesn't excuse the Vet career, it just makes it more outrageous that such practices continue. And no, Generations was not my favorite pack and you touch on why that is.

I have no desire to go into detail of every flaw in past games though because this isn't about them, this is about Sims 4. Highlighting those past flaws is of limited use because those games are done, whereas Sims 4 can still benefit from feedback. The only interest I have in mentioning past games is to showcase that the frequency of recycling has absolutely spiked.

There's even this ridiculous double standard here:

The Sims 3 literally sold content twice (Hot Tubs, Washers, Dryers to name a few)

You mean the ones with vastly different designs? In packs where there was enough raw content for this to be irrelevant? By your logic here, Sims 4 is reselling us content every time they make a new bed variant; those were new variants, not direct copies. You don't see me complaining about new bed designs because they're new; yes I would complain if a bed had the exact same cell and design but got re-released with slightly different colors, though.

Even the presentation is different: Late Night releases a new type of Hot Tub, and no it's not blasted all over the streams and trailers as though the hot tub is somehow a "major" selling point of the pack. They new it was minor and kept it as such. The same cannot be said for these Food stands, as making "new cultural food" is practically becoming a running gag at this point. They've done this thrice now. Heck, even the recycled bear costume and recycled Superllama costume were used in pack previews and streams with the devs saying "look how neat this is!" There's a very different tone in the execution of recycled content: when past games did it, they didn't draw attention to it because the devs understood recycled content isn't exciting. Here? There's basically a 50-50 shot the recycled content will be presented as a major feature of the pack.

What's the difference between that and reusing Food Vendors or Market tables? Oh I know, EA basically included them for free with JA.

So Sims 3 releases several hot tubs with different aesthetic designs in multiple packs and this is "reselling old content," but if Jungle Adventures reuses food stalls, that's "including them for free?" Yeah seems legit, makes perfect sense.

2) I've said this before, but your entire post is just statements with bold claims, but zero support, arguments or evidence. You absolutely have a habit of this:

"For C&D, the Vet Career is nothing like the Retail or Restaurant career." *changes subject*

"What's the difference between that and reusing Food Vendors or Market tables? Oh I know, EA basically included them for free with JA. Considering it has numerous gameplay items, more than any Game Pack before." *changes subject*

"And the market stalls in CL and C&D still offer new content." *changes subject*

You've not addressed a word of what I said or done anything to even support your own stances. I don't know what you're expecting to come of your post since you leave people with nothing to discuss. You haven't refuted a word of any of my arguments. You've just said "the vet career is completely different" and that's your argument I guess, but that's not really an argument because you've done nothing to point out how it's different.

What I'm saying and what I'm arguing is this: why does the EXACT bug that pops up in GTW retail workers resurface in the Vet career? They've had three years to fix the retail system and they haven't done it. On top of that, they're ready and willing to copypaste it despite knowing the system is heavily flawed. It's lazy, it results in sub-par buggy content, and it's downright insulting to see such content repeated with zero improvements or even bug fixes. Why on earth should I give them my money for repeat content that doesn't even work right? That's like if I went to an auto dealer and they sold me a lemon of a Red Honda Accord that has troubles with starting the engine, and then one year later when I'm sick of dealing with it, I go back to the same auto dealer and they greet me with "so I heard you were unsatisfied with your Red Honda Accord with engine problems. Wanna buy a BLUE Honda Accord with engine problems?" No, no I don't. No one in their right mind would go back to that same auto dealer, nor would they trust to purchase another Honda Accord from them. That sums up my stance with this game wonderfully: I have opted out of multiple packs specifically because they recycle content to function as main features, and I don't think that warrants a purchase.

I would have absolutely nothing against them recycling that retail system if it were good, stable, and saw regular improvements each time it was reused. This is not the case. You touched on the professions system of Sims 3 and yeah, there's your difference: that system worked (individual careers such as Ghost Hunter had individual bugs, yes, but there was no universal bug that was a guarentee to afflict all active careers), this system doesn't. The quality of retail system that we got in 2017 is more or less the same as the quality of the system in 2015. We are not moving forward, we're going in circles, and that's a severe problem. It makes the game look and feel like a blatant cash-grab too.

How many times is the recycling of content too much? Food stalls have been used three times now, with the concept of "new recipes" as a major feature having been used four times. I do not care about the cheaply drawn food on my Sim's plate. It's completely irrelevant to me, and yet it's four times now they've tried to sell this stuff to us as a major feature. That's my concern: that this is just gonna continue, and that recycled content is actually behind the steering wheel with this game, directly playing a large role in what packs get made and what packs get skipped.

1) It's not a comparison to be "less bad" because The Sims 4 isn't recycling any content that takes up slots for new content. This is how DLC works for any game. It's only an issue if Jungle Adventure, for example, completely got rid of the jungle area, and just gave us a new world with the same content. Instead, it took what it already built, re-used some of it, and then gave us a whole new GP over the top.
You can't also "recycle a vet career" when we didn't have a Vet career. They reused the Business system, but The Sims 1 - 3 all reused systems too. If the new content was "run a vet store" then I could understand the backlash. But a Vet operates nothing like Retail, apart from the fact it shares a UI. DLC for games reuses existing content and builds upon it. A lot of what you're saying was "recycled" was built into the base game coding.

The systems that the past games recycled functioned as intended. This one does not, and yet they recycle it. That is inexcuseable to me. I expect Sims 3 to recycle it's coding for active careers because that coding works. However, if Island Paradise is a buggy mess and they try to release another tropical island pack with the exact same flaws, yes I'm gonna be outraged.

The Sims 4 isn't recycling any content that takes up slots for new content.

And what makes you say this?

Best case scenario, the budget was never going to allow for fully new features anyways, and this is a disappointing attempt to try and provide "more" content without providing anymore at all. Worst case scenario, it is absolutely playing a role in deciding what packs come next because they purposefully steer towards concepts that are easy to craft with the help of recycled content. Either way, content demands time and money, and they've somehow decided we need four different packs that demand they make new food stall colors and food plates, as well as three packs using a retail system where (highly similar) bugs have popped up with all three.

2) The point here is, they didn't just sell you new laundry designs, they literally made you pay for the "development" of laundry twice. At most, those new laundry items on the store should have been a $3 DLC pack (16 items). Instead they make you pay $10, because they're making you pay for the development of Laundry twice. Adding Laundry into new Expansions is fine. But asking $10 alone for Laundry even if you already paid for it previously, is a stretch. EA should have just bundled those new designs into EPs/SPs or made them much cheaper than $10. At $10, you're past the point of "oh hey, here's some new laundry designs" to "hey please pay for Laundry twice".

No they didn't, they copy-pasted the coding of laundry, and it worked. <----That right there is your key difference. I am not unconditionally against the practice of recycling content, I am against recycling content when they recycle from systems that don't work. The vet career absolutely did this, and it has me questioning the motivation for other recycled content. After all, I'm pretty sure I could fill an entire queue of Sim interactions with pure social interactions, with every single interaction on the list having a unique name, but ALL of them having an identical animation and audio clip attached to them while the majority of those also have identical functions.

I already explained this in my last post: I don't get up in arms at University Life for recycling laundry because University Life neither advertised it as a major feature, nor were they lazily copying a highly busted and highly broken system. No, someone probably made the decision that laundry is relevant enough to include in a university pack, so they included it to add to the theme. Doing so was never intended to be a major feature though and was not advertised as such. Here, they make sure to tell us about that new cultural food, tie it into the aspiration, and include it in trailers and preview streams.

3) The food stalls didn't take up new gameplay slots, so again, the faux outrage trend is for teenagers who just discovered Twitter, not for those who can put 2 and 2 together and realise they didn't sacrifice new gameplay, to reintroduce old gameplay. The market without the Food stands would have been less interesting, and therefore is a welcome addition to Jungle Adventure. They also sell new foods, not existing foods. And for those who like Cooking, adds a huge new range of foods to cook. It can also be used in Dine Out, and a brand new type of Restaurant can be made also. There's substantial new content, considering it's recycled, and at this point doesn't even take up development time of the pack.

As I said, I wouldn't take offense to the food stalls if they were not presented as a major feature of the pack and if recycling content was not so frequent with this game. It is however, and thus I'm left questioning how much sway the potential for recycling content has in decision-making.

4) How about you point out how the Retail and the Vet system is the same? Considering you played C&D on a friends computer, perhaps you may have not actually played it for yourself. Tell me what is the same? All I see is a UI being reused.

I did explain that. Twice infact:

Retail has a bad habit/bug where workers do not do anything. They'll sit outside on their phone, stand around, and generally just not do their job. Cats and Dogs releases and lo and behold, there are both gameplay videos and bug reports showcasing how hired workers have a terrific habit of standing around doing nothing. Three years this bug has existed and three years they do nothing to fix it. Despite this, they even have the audacity to copypaste that buggy system into a new pack and demand $40 for it. That's outrageous to me.

6) What's broken with the Retail system or Vet system. They work fine for me. Dine Out has an issue with Sims getting up to chat with each other, but the Vet career and Retail career work fine for me. You don't even talk about the bug in question.

As I said, I've stated this multiple times. I can quote you in both the main post and the post responding to you where I commented on the exact bug I mentioned just above:

"Get to Work released, people tried out retail, it was terrible. Complaints included that both customers and employees seemed to do nothing at all, basic interactions with customers took ages, and employees just simply weren't doing their job. Fast forward to today, they still haven't patched or repaired that system in any way whatsoever. That portion of Get To Work remains broken and an absolute chore to participate in."

"Browse the forums and sure enough, you'll see very familiar complaints. "My Vet employees aren't working! They just stand around!" This is the exact same issue. They copy-pasted the retail system, bugs and all. They absolutely should've known this would've happened. This is a case where either they directly knew this might happen, or they should've known and the idea that they couldn't anticipate this is ridiculous."

"What I'm saying and what I'm arguing is this: why does the EXACT bug that pops up in GTW retail workers resurface in the Vet career? They've had three years to fix the retail system and they haven't done it."

If you're going to disagree with me, please do me a favor and actually bother reading my posts to see what my stance is and why I feel that way. Otherwise, the conversation goes in circles for both of us.

7) The Profession system did have bugs though. There's actually a bug where if your Profession requires use of a Rabbit Hole, it only works in worlds that don't have combo rabbit holes (which every world does beyond Ambitions). So if you're playing with Bridgeport or later, Professions don't work unless you replace the combo rabbit holes with base game ones. Also, that basically means that unless you're willing to use base game rabbit holes, the whole Profession System is broken. EA became aware of this, and basically made sure that future professions didn't require Rabbit holes. Nice of them eh?

That is a bug related to combo rabbit holes, NOT the professions. The professions came first and they did not anticipate such an error. I think that one was patched too. This is completely different because they both didn't have any reason that they should've absolutely known for certain that bug would arise, and they made efforts to fix it. (and if they didn't and I'm mistaken, then yes that sucks, I agree it's horrible, and here we are again with me asking you why you think the flaws of Sims 3 somehow excuse flaws of Sims 4. I want them both fixed, not neither) The Vet career is a case where they recycled the Retail to Dine Out, similar complaints about bugs and quirks in the system arose, and did they fix it? No, they just quietly copy-pasted the system again to the Vet Career. They absolutely should've known, they absolutely had reason to suspect this would happen, they absolutely could've avoided it, and yet they did nothing. They cut corners and resold old content, bugs included.

8) They're not selling Food stalls a major feature. That's full of it even for you. They are shown for less than a second in the announcement trailer. Literally blink and you miss it. It's also not even mentioned on the Origin page as more than a blip.

That seems to be your issue. You get focused too much on one thing, that it clouds your vision for everything else that's going on.

Jungle Adventure literally came with more Build/Buy and CAS items, and also more unique gameplay items (if we include the gameplay items found in BuyDebug from the Jungle/Temple) than a whole Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion (which is when EA made EPs $40 btw) for $20, and you're coming in with "um we've had these 3 things before".

Obviously, Bon Voyage has more on it's side with Gameplay features, but that's quite a feat for $20 and all you can think about is the smallest, most unnecessary things ever and making them out to be the worst thing in gaming history.

Again, I do not know your obsession with comparing the titles in such a way that past flaws excuse future ones. Improvement over time is expected. I do not look back at Sims 1 and get outraged over it's low bed count; it was a different time with more limited tech, and if anything it'd be outrageous if 2, 3 or 4 somehow delivered the same content count despite advances in tech.

The pure count of build mode objects is a flawed measurement too, as City Living padded it's catalog with wall paintings while Cats and Dogs used wall decals. What percent of those objects serve a new function or focus solely on fleshing out a new aesthetic? The pack has a very unique aesthetic going for it, but if it has one bed matching that aesthetic and 40 random paintings, it can still be disappointing.

As for the reference to the food stalls being major content, it gets incorporated into the aspirations, the curse cures, one of the new skills, and it's one of the only things to do in the town. The town is basically a bar and some food stalls. If you were to ask people to list five main features of this pack, I promise you you'll find people listing those food stalls.
simgirl1010
Hero
7 years ago
I quite actually like the idea of new food cart recipes in each pack. Food and recipes are some of my favorite game features. I think it would be cool if instead of giving us newly designed food carts to give us the ability to customize existing carts and then just new recipes with each pack. That way we could add whatever recipes we wanted to existing food carts and those resources could be used for other features.
Horrorgirl6
Seasoned Hotshot
7 years ago
"simgirl1010;c-16359092" wrote:
I quite actually like the idea of new food cart recipes in each pack. Food and recipes are some of my favorite game features. I think it would be cool if instead of giving us newly designed food carts to give us the ability to customize existing carts and then just new recipes with each pack. That way we could add whatever recipes we wanted to existing food carts and those resources could be used for other features.

I think it depends what the feature is food and merchandise stands . For instance, aleast have different kinds of food, and merch stands there are okay. Something like a bush with a different texture is just lazy and just devalued the previse dlc. The problem isn't necessary recycling . Is the recycling use in a new, and gameplay way.
Joanne_Snow
Rising Traveler
7 years ago
I think when it comes to TS4 recycling content, it depends on how they do it. And in the last few packs, I was rather happy with what it meant. Because I actually like that this time around, what we get in a pack isn't all of that kind we'll ever get. People liked the foodstands, they keep adding to them, without making it a general focus of the pack. People liked active careers, they further experimented with them in Dine Out (and it's much better, Dine Out is honestly fun to me while retail isn't and the active careers too repetitive.. and the last few patches have fixed a lot of bugs in both DO and the vet career for me - in DO my employees never just stand around and when I go out to eat, or take my own pets to the vet, everything's pretty fast and smooth again, and no longer takes a ridiculous amount of time), then in a different way in CL and now again in the vet career. In fact as a person who loves careers, if they finally give us self-employment back, TS4 will be the best to me career-wise (but only if I can one day register my sim at City Hall or other as a gardener, painter, archaeologist, etc. - and on that note, I'm excited that for archaeology they added a nice perk that at least feels a bit like the chance cards related to TS3's self-employment system). They took the idea from GF to sell vacation supplies and made it a lot better by fusing it with the vendor table. And there are so many items to buy there. If that's in part because they didn't have to spend any time on actually making the vendor table, then I'm happy with that decision. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that recycling in these examples simply doesn't bother me because it's done so that they can add other things to these packs we didn't yet have, and the recycled content is usually a much improved version of the original.
AFlyingNun
7 years ago
"SimTrippy;c-16359434" wrote:
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that recycling in these examples simply doesn't bother me because it's used so they can add other things to packs and they're usually much improved versions of the original.

I don't see it that way at all. Look at the Vet career. The exact same bug from retail pops up in the Vet career, and then if you look at the rest of the pack itself.....where are small pets? Where are horses? Where are Pet skills, careers and competitions? We didn't gain anything, we only lost features.

As I said, it could be a case where they were never gonna be able to produce new content anyways, or it could be a case where recycling content is a "goal" of sorts that they try to use as much as possible. If it's the former, then this is the same old questioning of why the Sims 4 has such a tiny budget. If it's the latter, then I know exactly what to expect from Seasons: new food stalls, vendor tables and maybe a just-as-buggy copy of the retail system. For me, that's not exciting or worth my money to just get the same stuff over and over.
Joanne_Snow
Rising Traveler
7 years ago
"DeservedCriticism;c-16359451" wrote:
"SimTrippy;c-16359434" wrote:
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that recycling in these examples simply doesn't bother me because it's used so they can add other things to packs and they're usually much improved versions of the original.

I don't see it that way at all. Look at the Vet career. The exact same bug from retail pops up in the Vet career, and then if you look at the rest of the pack itself.....where are small pets? Where are horses? Where are Pet skills, careers and competitions? We didn't gain anything, we only lost features.

As I said, it could be a case where they were never gonna be able to produce new content anyways, or it could be a case where recycling content is a "goal" of sorts that they try to use as much as possible. If it's the former, then this is the same old questioning of why the Sims 4 has such a tiny budget. If it's the latter, then I know exactly what to expect from Seasons: new food stalls, vendor tables and maybe a just-as-buggy copy of the retail system. For me, that's not exciting or worth my money to just get the same stuff over and over.

The vet career is a lot more like DO and the active careers than the retail system. And although I'm sure retail is rooted in the same mechanics, I hate retail in TS4 but I really enjoy restaurants and being a vet, and sometimes enjoy active careers.

Now concerning cats&dogs: I still like it, but I know you don't. I won't argue about this but, really, the vet career isn't all there is to this pack for me. And I, for one, am much happier about the vet than I would've been about small pets in cages. To each their own.

Also, I don't know if it's my CPU, RAM, luck, or something else altogether but again, I do not experience such extreme bugs. The restaurant especially is fast, I haven't been a vet in a while but the main issue I had with it was visiting the vet with sick pets. Which took forever. It simply doesn't anymore, so I don't share your frustration there (although frankly, I doubt your bug reports in this respect are based on actually owning and playing these packs).

And they do still make new content. Jungle Adventure is a pretty solid experience for one (but yes, it's a vacation experience, not a base game overhaul, we know, we know. Actually we knew before we bought it), despite the recycling of certain features. It still feels very much like its own addition and offers far more than merely the sum of its recycled features.

Anyway... Just my opinion, of course, but I guess a lot of other people seem pretty happy too :)
MidnightAura86
New Spectator
7 years ago
Recycling is hurting this game. You only have to look at the active careers to see that.

Even if you don't play the vet career, a visit there with a sick pet and the vets will wander about, chat, play on the pc, eventually they may treat your pet. But last time I did it was a good 8 hours before they would.

Retail is a mess, dine out your sims can still be waiting up for 4/5 game hours on a good day for food. And if that's not enough you are fighting them getting up and dancing and swatting away random sims who drop by your sims table to chat.

Doctor career is still broken. Those systems should never have been recycled.

Not a huge fan of food carts being recycled either. It's just massive corner cutting.