Regarding Premades Lore Updates

I'm trying to figure out how to care about the "lore" update, but failing quickly.

I don't care about NPC's. They exist in my game saves.... in the background. I generally don't acknowledge their existence unless one of them decides to kick over my garbage can. Then I light them on fire, and go back to forgetting again they exist.

Which sims' iteration they first debuted in? Who they are married to? Do they have an education? Preferences, etc, etc,...... I-don't-care.

Any/all sims I play in any of my game saves are created from scratch in the CAS. All other sims just get in the way, and are more so than not just a tolerence tester. From showing up at your door to welcome you into the neighborhood, to constantly calling you on the phone, to kicking over your garbage can.... I can most certainly do without them.

I say.... kill them all off and just write a book about them. I'll read it never. lol.

This is likely going to turn into another annoyance with popups like the voting thing (despite having it turned off) constantly telling you about the sims next door.

Congrats to everyone who wants this new update. If it's good for some simmers then fair enough. I like seeing at least some of us win at least some of the time.

I think this update will mostly only make sense to people who frequently start new saves. I play the same save for years so it seems unnecessary to me and kind of weird to do 7 years later. I also feel like we could use more personality tweaks like better romance options for interactions and a variety of relationships recognized by the game before they dive into an NPC update. We also need better negative reactions to enmity and rivalry, otherwise, what's the point? Sims will just hug and wave and make friends on their own eventually and it won't matter.

"LiELF;c-17950532" wrote:
I think this update will mostly only make sense to people who frequently start new saves. I play the same save for years so it seems unnecessary to me and kind of weird to do 7 years later. I also feel like we could use more personality tweaks like better romance options for interactions and a variety of relationships recognized by the game before they dive into an NPC update. We also need better negative reactions to enmity and rivalry, otherwise, what's the point? Sims will just hug and wave and make friends on their own eventually and it won't matter.

The issue with this update, is the same issue with any update like whims, preferences, likes/dislikes.... is that all the sims are on the same road to becoming carbon copies of each other.... making all the updates completely useless.

The likes/dislikes system should have opened the door for individuality for our sims, but despite sims not liking things... they'll still do them. All we got was another "lets change their mood and have them cuss" update.

If one of my sims don't like cooking.... that sim shouldn't cook, either autonomously, or by my direction. They should refuse to cook. This would impose a group of sims with a less comparitive, random list of skills and preferences. Or dare I say it? Individuals.

I don't see how adding lore to the game is going to de-clone the sims from being a carbon copy of the sim next door. As it is.... you only need to play 1 sim to have played them all.

I doubt this will impact my game in any kind of meaningful way. I've hardly read the bios we DO have. I have a lot of saves, with many families in all of them, and I have premade sims in most of them, usually added by marriage.

Oh hey, if they make Johnny have links etc. with the other Landgraabs, that means I don't have to fiddle around with mods and cheats to set that up when I start new saves. But yeah, other than that....my care for the backstories is very low, always has been. Except in TS2, which was awesome with stories and interconnected drama between sims/families. Don't think TS4 will ever get to that level. Also don't have much hope for TS5 in that regard.

What made the premades in TS2 interesting to me were the scripted events. It was just epic how in the Pleasant household, the maid asked Daniel to hang out, then Mary-Sue would get a chance card that would always result in her getting fired and catching Daniel with Kaylynn. It showed how the scenarios can play out and was sort of like having a tutorial without it feeling like one. I liked having those storylines set up for me, while having the option to do my own thing and ignore them. If we had scripted events in TS4 I would play the premades just to check that out, but I don’t know if updated bios are really going to do it for me, and unless they fix sentiments so they stick until you play that household, they could be gone before I even notice them.

I dig it. I've already got a save file of my own where I've got a bunch of sims either reset to their earlier versions from earlier games (like the Pleasants), or put in families that were in previous versions but not this one (like the Smiths) or changed the skin color to match earlier versions (like Cassandra Goth), or some combination thereof.

I know their update won't affect that. If I want the Pancakes to dislike each other, I'll have to go in and fix that myself.

But hopefully it'll include *non-reciprocal relationships* so they can do things like have Summer and Liberty both crushing on Travis, who is totally unaware they're interested in him. That would be a pretty major overhaul to how relationships and romantic interactions worked, though.

I was about to add that these updates wouldn't affect me because in my game all pre-mades are essentially only temporary placeholders for my own sims, but then I had a thought. It would affect me if they were to make some or all of the pre-mades non-editable (and possibly also immortal) from here on out. I hope that thought doesn't become reality, because such a move on the company's part would be just too... stupid? Ugh, I'm not doing a good job of encouraging myself here. At any rate, if that should happen, it'll be the unexpected terminus of my Sims 4 journey.

I'd rather they put their resources and efforts into making the likes/dislike system actually do what it's supposed to, a sim that dislikes something shouldn't autonomously do it anyway.
Maybe they should actually focus on making the autonomous actually function properly, yet something else that should have been developed from the beginning.

You'd think from all the things in Sims 2 and 3, they would have made a better effort in giving the proper basics and social interactions/relationships. I feel like Sims 4 is a joke to the long time players and only care about new players who don't understand what they are missing out on from previous series.

It's really sad honestly, but EA is a terrible company as is cause they only care about the money.
Overall, they'll do what they want so I guess sure, I'd be okay with the update :/ :eyeroll:

"Chicklet453681;c-17950322" wrote:

"filipomel;c-17950308" wrote:
I'm surprised to see some of y'all saying you're not interested in the lore updates, this is honestly huge news in my personal opinion. As it is now, townies in the default save are exactly that, default. They all have default relationships with one another, default features according to what packs they came in, etc. and for a simulation game, when everything starts in the default, it tends to stay in the default, especially in Sims 4. This news really excites me because they have added many features since the launch of the base game that are simply absent from the majority of the game, making a large portion of the game, at least in a new save, feel very incomplete to me. For one, Sims released before Snowy Escape/Dream Home Decorator are completely void of two of the biggest personality additions to the game, sentiments and likes/dislikes, sims outside Windenburg won't be found in clubs, lots pre lot trait patch don't have any lot traits, pets aren't found anywhere outside of Brindleton bay, sims pre seasons don't have hot/cold weather outfits or preferences, Sims lack relevant reputation and celebrity levels (even after the release of Get Famous), sims lack relevant university degrees, every neighborhood outside of Evergreen harbour is in a neutral state, Sims don't have lifestyles, or character value traits, basically there are a lot of gaps and inconsistencies in the base save, I don't think many players realize how much these additions would add to the overall experience. Ideally they would also work with game changers to renovate most of the terrible, terrible, terrible lots as well. That's saying they go this in depth with each sim/household, I don't expect they will, but any kind of update to the lore will be much appreciated to me.

Yes, but isn't this only going to effect "new saves"? Some people (such as myself) have been playing this game for 7 years with the same saves, some of them play with the same save since 2014, these changes won't show up in their game, right?

Do you always create new saves?

I would assume this lore update would only affect new saves, so for those who have been playing the same save files for years now I can see how this update would seem irrelevant to them. I do tend to create different save games for different reasons. I have gotten into the habit of downloading custom save files for my new games since they tend to do a much better job at 'filling in the gaps', only problem with these custom save files is they were clearly created for a playstyle different than my own, so I often struggle having fun in them depending on how I wish to play my game. Custom save files will always be fun to explore and play with, but this lore update should theoretically rid me of the need for them.

The lore was such an integral part of the earlier games and really made them special. It made the worlds feel so vast and alive. I hope this update isn't a let-down and they actually go in and fix the families, add relationships with other townies, hopefully add ancestors to the family trees, maybe even fix the timeline issue. But I won't hold my breath.