Another person who has played The Sims since the first game, and I think every expansion pack except Into The Future (because I got so tired of having my heart broken by game-ending bugs when I was 3 generations deep into a saga that I deleted the entirety of TS3 from my computer after Island Paradise.
I haven't had this much fun since The Sims 2, about 3 expansion packs in or so. And this is just the base game. I AM EXCITED.
You made what actors would call "difficult choices" here, and for some they are not paying off. For me they are. I've been eating and sleeping and breathing Sims since the moment it became available 9 days ago, and that never happened to me with TS3 at any stage. I am one of the (seemingly) few who really gets what you were going for here, and it makes me feel as though the current dev team plays the same kind of Sims game I do and cares about the same things. I hope there are enough people out there like me to make this iteration a success.
The only things that truly, deeply bother me are:
1. Lack of family tree. This is huge for me, and it's baffling because it seems to fit into the type of gameplay this iteration is emphasizing: the emotional connection to the sims as people, not just dolls to dress up and build dollhouses for. A huge part of the satisfaction of people who play emotionally is the "legacy" aspect and the feeling of generational progress and family history, visible at the click of a button. Maybe you're holding off because you think it fits better into an upcoming family-themed EP, and normally I'm okay with waiting for additional content, but not for this. I'll have sims that are long dead by the time the EP comes out, sims I'd like to trace my current sims' bloodlines back to.
Actually that's the only thing that DEEPLY bothers me at all. Other nitpicks:
1. The Sims' book behavior, even the Neat sims, is slovenly in the extreme. Super tired of having to waste game time picking up after sims who start 4 different books without finishing the last one and leave them anywhere but on a bookshelf.
2. Why will sims make themselves late to work and pee down their own legs rather than end a conversation with some dude they just met? If you have a need that's in the yellow, especially if the satisfying action is already queued up for you, now might be a good time to autonomously end the conversation.
That may actually be the only things that annoy me. Maybe it's because I have a superfast awesome computer, but I've had no technical issues at all, and the loading screens are a vast relief compared to the endless cab rides I suffered through in TS3 (especially Isla Paradiso, oh my lord).
I hope you guys are better able than the players to tell the difference between "this makes absolutely no sense under any circumstances" and "this doesn't fit the way I wanted to play the game," and prioritize fixing the former category over the latter. Like, no one wants books all over their house. Some people could care less about pools. And I like toddlers, but I get that it's a personal preference and not something that's necessary to good game design. So I'm focusing on the things that just make no sense in general.
Hope this helps!
EA Staff (Retired)
