I feel like I've been seeing a lot of people agreeing on the no open world thing being a huge problem. And again, I get that you were trying to make the initial load faster, etc. BUT I have a friend with a really great gaming pc (so not just his machine), and he got his family up to like 6 or 7 sims tonight, and he says the load screen when one sim is coming back to the house where the rest of the family is (we assume as the game figures out all their stuff at load) is not short. Once any load screen lasts more than just a few seconds, the whole point of throwing in several hundred different loads we have to deal with is suddenly moot. I for one (and by far not the only one) MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer waiting around for several minutes for my TS3 game to load -- ONCE!! -- because whatever, I can go get a sandwich or something, and then once I'm in, I'm IN... I can Sim for an entire day and not have to wait around again that whole day (unless traveling, but that's only once in a while and you get such a long time to spend at the destination). Plus there's a ton of stuff to DO, so yeah take that time to load in all my stuff. I will trade even 5 solid minutes or more of an initial load to get 12 hours of uninterrupted gameplay over waiting 15-60 seconds every 10 minutes, no question, and I am so not alone. I think you guys are counting on people shelling out for EPs to make you more money so they can get a better game. But I really think you will lose so many people who are just going to go back to 3 and not buy any expansions for 4. If one day you manage to get rid of the load screens, I'll consider returning to 4. But if you do, you should advertise the fact HEAVILY, because a lot of us just won't be paying attention to TS4 developments. :(
EA Staff (Retired)
