The I'm Bored Thread

"ApparentlyAwesome;c-17357359" wrote:
I wonder if they really think about helping us players tell our stories in their quest to help us players tell our stories. Sometimes the stories we want to tell have little or nothing to do with our real lives. Sometimes they don't require or sync with the vision the team has when they make these neighborhoods and sims and create these backstories, and sometimes we get rid of everything and everyone in order to make our own vision come to life. Sometimes it's the complete opposite of all that too, so I'm not saying that's reason for them not to bother creating sims with backstories and history together and to stop creating neighborhoods and houses and just leave it up to the player. There are players who love that and need that when they play, but for as much as they talked about how this game was for us players to create, control, and rule this was an area where I felt less in control creatively than Sims 2 and 3.

They used to provide us with options to basically break down the walls and step outside what their vision was for us but those options are limited this time around. There may be more options to build within their vision but we can't break out of it and that limits players similar to me who don't have EA's vision in mind for the characters and world they want to build. That's part of what makes this game boring to me, I guess you could say. I may use the premade sims and premade houses or buildings sometimes, but I usually create my own and ignore all the premades unless I think of something they could be useful for. I don't focus on the stories they want to tell and that they give us to play through, I make my own, but a lot of what this game does and doesn't provide makes that difficult to do.

I know I'm not bored The Sims franchise. The Sims 3 still plum me in. My current save I kept reminding myself is supposed to only be testing the houses but oh well lol. I'm excusing the growing families by more sims to run around and show my problem areas. I came across a folder of old saves while looking for some CC I had downloaded and I was torn between this current save and replaying one of the old ones with a werewolf, a vampire and a witch who live in the city. Then I also came across saved sims I had been updating and giving makeovers to earlier this year and most of those sims are part of the prequel to the sims in the current save. I literally have to stop myself from listing all the possibilities, some including a few EA premade sims my created sims ran into in different worlds that I thought would be great together. There are so many ideas I came up with, possibilities are endless and I want to go in so many different directions. That's the kind of excitement I usually have when playing The Sims 3. I don't get that playing Sims 4. If I'm playing Sims 2, yeah, but not Sims 4. It's the current game that I just can't click with.

And they've added some decent stuff but most of what's been added falls short, likely because the game feels shallow and dull to me. It's that width without depth thing Carl mentioned. They can sprinkle whatever they want on it but if the base doesn't change it doesn't do much if anything at all. Meanwhile, look at what are deemed the popular or must have mods. I mean, they can look at those and see just what players have a taste for and I think half if not most of the things highly desired are fixes and common sense things like less musical chairs or making sure sims don't wash dishes in the bathroom sink. Then there are other mods that provide more advanced options and let the players control difficulty levels of certain things, increase household numbers, add gender preference, enrich personalities, add more careers and other things that have been much needed during this game. That should be a big hint of what players want right there. Lots of different things, so having options and depth is a big plus, and improvements and bug fixes are high up there too.

Exactly. As for the first part I bolded: I even think sometimes the fact I have to use workarounds (and am allowed to use workarounds, like creating apartments with roommates) makes it more fun even. Same with the mall I built. My sim's a poor guy, so I created some furniture for him to buy there on sale. Yup, it's cheating in a way, "oh you lucky bastard, got your bedroom in a 60% sale, what are the odds", but within limits that's just real fun. He's going to the mall and he's buying his stuff there. It's less advanced than in Sims 2 and 4 apparently, but I don't actually need to run a shop. I'm fine with it this way (and I actually hate it the shelves in the bakery are empty after a while because sims bought everything, just leave it all there please, I don't want having to refill shelves with pies each and every generation :weary: ).

The second bolded part is really recognizable as well lol. I sometimes open my game to take a picture or whatever, or indeed build something. Then test it and before I know it I've been sitting there and played for an hour or so. Sad to say but with Sims 4 it's the other way around. I planned to play, then quite often quit after 20 minutes. Not always, but that has happened a lot. I should add that also Sims 3 could have been so much better in this respect. I'm having so much fun with Mastercontroller, that allows me to adjust details. Get my sim's sister and her boyfriend with child for instance, or change outfits when they're still in their party clothes, or (in IP) their swim wear. Mastercontroller hands the player control over what they want to control. It shouldn't have been a mod, it should have been something EA came up with.