@JoAnne65 Thanks for putting together that video. I don't know if I'm quite the same kind of sims player you are or not, based on what you've said (I'm sure there are some similarities), but whether we are or not, I can say one of the most immediate things that stuck out to me, which I'm not sure I've ever seen in TS4, is the number of individual conversations going on. In TS4, they seem to go for joining an existing conversation over trying to hold a more intimate conversation with one sim, which I guess is one type of social gathering dynamic that happens in real life, but it still seems incomplete. I don't think there's enough of a priority for them to split off of group conversations once they're in one and go start a new conversation somewhere else, with other sims (which I think is closer to how it'd look in RL when you have the group convo dynamic going on at a social gathering).
That alone struck me just in terms of how different it looks. Between that and the one-on-one dancing, the TS3 clip immediately felt more intimate. The helping with the keg stand aided in that feeling as well.
By contrast, the best way I can think to describe the TS4 clip is it feels more ordered, like actors waiting to play their part in some sort of live play, similar to the concept introduced in the beginning of the movie The Man Who Knew Too Little. The venue bartender waits idly in their place, ready to prepare drinks for anyone who wants one; the DJ plays music nonstop; the patrons dutifully dance to the music, ready to be interacted with if you wish, but not too invested in their own existence or decisions, lest they miss their cue.
Which I'm not saying is inherently a bad thing. It's just... different. Some people seem to love it and if your goal is to play it like you are the sim you're playing, walking through a live performance as a living, breathing actor, it's probably great. But I don't think it hits that mark of surprise as well, that you describe. Instead, I think it comes alive most when you, playing as if you are a sim, start influencing what's happening through your (the sim's) actions. I have a suspicion that if the game was inherently first-person, TS4's design might seem stronger. Thanks to that one guru's work on the side, we can now try playing the game in first person, albeit a little jankily. I wonder how that would change the perspective; if the comparison was watching TS3 after a little setup, versus directing TS4 from the eyes of a first person sim.
