Suggestions for improving historical gameplay

New objects such as rotary phones and telegraph machines, wood chopping interaction and firewood for off the grid stoves, horse and carriage vehicles for travel (instead of bicycles), a post office interactive shell for social interactions that would normally require a phone or computer, and historical activities and hobbies such as leather tanning, sewing, and weaving. Also historical careers, such as cobbler, seamstress, miller (with a functional grinding stone or windmill for making cottage living flour and sugar).

"JAL;c-18336940" wrote:
I think it has gotten worse after the "fix". I even tried installing a mod but to no avail, they're constantly picking them up. During conversations, during arguments, when upset because someone died... it's been insane lately.

Which mod did you install, @JAL ? Mine is working without issues (except if there are new phone interactions in For Rent, cause I don't own that).
noautonomousphone
https://www.seebee.de/sims4me/index.php?list=4

I think we didn't really need a medieval castle kit. What we would have needed are medieval Versions for functional objects like sinks, stoves, bathtubs, ...

@83bienchen I actually uninstalled the one I had and switched to yours, and it has been working fine since, so I'm eternally grateful. I still wish there was a non-mod way to do it, if nothing else for all those playing on console who do not have the option of mods.

Personally I like the look of the kit from what I've seen so far. Did we need it? Probably not, but I still like the look of what I have seen so far (I look forward to improving Windenburg Cathedral).

However, I absolutely agree with you that we need more functional historical objects and I generally think that historical kits and packs would sell really well. A lot of objects could reuse animations and be simple reskins (toys made from wood with less color, a medieval stove reusing the cauldron animation, a sink filled by a pitcher reusing the pitcher animation from laundry day, a lute reusing the guitar animations, a writing "station" (piece of paper and quill/pen) resuing the homework animation that can do much of the same interactions as the computer - write book, letters, apply for university...). Some wouldn't even need any animation as all, such as an outdoor toilet for one or a cash register in the shape of a simple wooden box. Others of course would need new animations (such as a functional broom for bust the dust), but I can honestly not see the need of too many of those objects, just a few.

My dream is a set of matching kits, one BB and one CAS for the various time periods. Medieval, Tudor/Elizabethan, Georgian/regency, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco/Roaring twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties... and so on. They would probably not need to cover every time period, as there would be a lot of overlapping for the older eras.

That's good to hear, @JAL.

And I agree with you on official updates being preferable to mods. I'm always hoping for at least some of my mods finally becoming obsolete.

I think one might even use the mop puddle animation for brooms.

I don't think the Kit is bad or ugly, I just wish they would have taken the Little Campers Kit road again with reskins of several functional objects. I'm all in for taking a live mode approach, especially given the very popular off the grid gameplay.

"JAL;d-1011858" wrote:
We're not a major group of players who play historical gameplay, and I just recently started myself, but we are still fairly many, who play in a vast array of ways. So how could the experience of the game be improved? I am not a programmer, and I don't know if everything I suggest here is even possible, but some is, and some would even make EA money, so I'm hoping someone picks up a few of these things at least.

• CAS and BB Kits to fit different time periods. This is the easy one, and EA has opened the door with the medieval build-kit. What we also need is a buy-kit (or stuff pack) with functional off the grid objects, things like toys, sinks, toilets, tubs and stoves that work while still looking medieval. And of course a CAS-kit to go along with it. Other suggestions would be art deco bb kit + the roaring twenties cas kit, art nouveau BB + Edwardian CAS, vintage swimsuit kit, CAS-kits for each of the decades in the 20th century along with bb-kits for some (we have plenty of mid-century modern furniture after all).
  
• The ability to turn off and on CAS-items for random. This would be an improvement for everyone, that with a shift-click be able to turn off and on clothes, accessories or hairstyles for random generation on NPCs. It would definitely help historical gameplay, but also just random gameplay where I could disable the CAS I hate from showing up on random NPC sims. (To be fair I'd love more options than this, like hiding and unhiding CAS, disabling it for certain age groups or genders or certain worlds.)
  
• Introduction of landline phones and newspapers. We are plenty of people who miss these, even among players who never play historical gameplay.
  
• The ability to turn off the mobile phones and laptops. This would work in combination with the above. A simple toggle on and off for the phones and laptops for everyone in game, including NPCs. This would also help with the technophobe lifestyle so that my sim isn't constantly tense about all the present technology because he or she has a phone they never use in a house with no other technology.
  
• The ability to turn off and on drive bys by cars. This would help with immersion.
  
• The ability to turn off certain functions on computers, say for instance videogames, in live mode on any computer by shift clicking it. Including computers on community lots. This would also help for other players by freeing up computers in libraries or university commons so you can actually use them for studying rather than them constantly being occupied by some random NPC playing video games.
  

I'm sure there are many more ways to make historical gameplay better and more immersive, but these are some of the things that I've noticed and thought of when playing historical myself. What do you wish for?

One of the major impediments to historically accurate gameplay, is the excess of modern world items, buildings, and animated objects. Unless a feature is added to the game to remove or substitute world objects, it will always be necessary for PC gamers to modify the game with hiders and default replacements. Frankly, Windenberg is a world with a historical design already in place. And modders have implemented a lot of targeted mods to better emphasize this, such as map replacements and re - shade tools. A feature to alter world objects freely would be most welcomed.

Expansions like Horse Ranch and Cottage Living provide a lot of rustic buildbuy items and allow interactions via the community board and interactive shells. This is a great feature, and it helps maintain the rustic appeal of those worlds. However, these types of features should be made compatible with other worlds to make them more suitable for historical gameplay. On the other hand, the movie theatre interactive shell in San Sequoia is an example of a modern version of this concept. Making interactive shells interchangeable would be nice. Then you could remove the modern ones and add more of the historical ones.

The off the grid lot challenge allows you to disable technological devices as well as computer and phone UI interactions that require electricity. But what would be even better, is a feature that would allow the world itself to be made off the grid compatible. That way you don't see NPCs walking down the street playing games on their cell phone.

@nattygirl13 I have to admit, that while it's annoying to have cars go by or some shots be impossible due to background objects, those annoy me less than game features. I'm good at pretending they're not there. However, you are right that it would be fantastic to be able to edit these things, and an off the grid world thing would be fantastic, although I'd settle for being able to limit sims from using the cottage living "typewriters" to play video games on in the library or university commons.

I happen to be trying to rip the files from a disk I saved of my old games from one of my old computers ... its going very slowly and needed a program and some toothpaste (slightly scratched). There's a huge folder with historical-themed stuff in it from a few neighbourhoods and their stories. Willburke Graylands, Wonder Bay ... they both start with W ... I don't know why. Well actually Willburke is to combine the Burke and Wills names from Australian history and the name of the mental health hospital ... I suppose it inspired a W name for the next one. A lot of cc from Sussissogood and All About Style. I was interested in revisiting some of the writing.

Anyway, I used to write-in the strangeness, annoyingness and unsuitability of outsider, uncontrollable sims in my historical-themed stories as a bit of fun. I got some of my sim characters riled up about it, and some would go around trying to change and fix it and lecture those sims ... and it would be a thing with matchmaking - a class divide, and they'd say little things about it in their conversations ... and it made my sims look better, by the odd sims being odd, the contrast. At least I thought so.

In both of those neighbourhoods/legacy type stories up there ^ my main households were newcomers from a historical time, in a modern-day town. Like a time-travel.
I remember it being a lot of work to set it up and the cc became a burden.
It would be good to have a universal theme change, but it might take up a whole xp to include/exclude behaviours, technology and the associated skills, or a whole new game, so maybe its better, less stressful, and more entertaining to work it in and go along with it.

Sims 2 had a feature being able to makeover other sims including townies and npc's, in Open For Business with the hairdressing station. Sims 3 has it too, the makeover station and I think they can also makeover someone else in the regular mirror? Probably in the Ambitions XP. There's probably something similar in Sims 4.

With playing a legacy, back then, it was within the rules to be able to marry, but you were also allowed to just move in as friends, townies or npcs, and move them back out. Not sure if they were allowed to move back in after that, probably not. Anyway, besides the benefit of using them for their money, there's also being able to fix them up. That's another solution, and something extra to do. I had one game and household where that was all they did, like a halfway house.

I think if it was all too perfect, it might get boring and played sims wouldn't have as much contrast to be so special.

In the dark ages, there was hardly any or not as much evidence of everything, that's why its called the dark ages. Funnily, the main ones were the 1100's both BC and AD. Something about that number. 11.11. Strange when you look at the clock and it's 11:11. Anyway, so technically you could get away with adding whatever you like in a theme of those periods. Especially fiction. If written well you create the world where its perfectly acceptable for checking your phone in the middle of a Minuet dance.

The end.

I agree that we need more stuff. And it would be nice to turn off some interactions. In the meantime, it always helps me to consider the game world as an alternate world that the sims live in, and not just an extension of mine. In their world, cowplants exist, death has a physical form, and townies dress in strange clothes. When I’ve played a historical save, I start with the assumption that certain aspects of sim society advanced at the same pace as ours, while others stayed in the past. Therefore, my 1960’s surf band was completely able to communicate with cell phones, search for jobs on a computer, and socialize with townies who had a different dress style. It would be anachronistic if I played them as living in my world. But, since this was their world, it made total sense for them. It works for me until we have other options.

Yes pretty please to all that! ;)

A kit for historic gameplay would be so easy to make, because the content would mostly be re-skins of existing items. Things like a pigeon perch instead of a mailbox for example. CC creators already provide a wide range of disguises for modern objects (leading to my sims who are programmers and gamers in modern saves to suddenly feely the urge to take up sewing, because one of the disguises I use is a sewing machine).

A tip for dealing with randomly spawned townies in modern clothes: I keep several generic period outfits in my sims reserve slots. They don't neccesarily have to match my sims's tastes or even social class, their purpose is to get handed over to those misfit townies. When a townie wanders into range, I spin my sim into one of the reserve outfits, copy it over onto the townie with McDresser and spin my sim back. It's not ideal (and won't help console players, unfortunately), but works in a pinch.