The sims 5 timeline

"EnigmaOFFC;c-17676822" wrote:
> @DaWaterRat said:
> This idea of continuing the timeline from a previous version of the sims (be it 2/3 or 4) reminds me of metaplots from Shadowrun and Vampire and similar TTRPG's.
>
> It's a great idea, until you decide to go somewhere that the metaplot doesn't go. Then everything after that is progressively less useful to you until you may as well not buy them at all, because you've diverged from the metaplot so much.
>
> I mean, it's not quite like that, but the idea is still there.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I like lore, and I love backstories. But that's a starting point. After that I like to tell my own stories.
>
> I mean, obviously I'd have to adjust to a new time line whether or not they kept the same timeline, because either it would be a whole new timeline, or else there's a very good chance that the stories I told with Sims 4 won't match up to whatever they choose for Sims 5. I just think it would be "cleaner" if it was a whole new timeline.

@DaWaterRat I don't understand your point. Might as well keep the regular timeline, as both alternate/regular will not fit how you've played the game. Youre forgetting that lore/canon are a thing that people enjoy, and you can act as if you used timetravel to see past events and change them to see new outcomes, but always having a mainline. I, myself, like to play Sunset Valley leading up to Sims 1 and fro mthere leading up to SIms 2.

To me Sims 5 should be set exactly in Sims 2 timestamp, with the classic neighborhoods like Pleasantview, Veronaville, Strangetown and even the Life/Pet/Castaway Storeis remade. But released between new ones telling us what happened to the likes of the Pancakes, Straud, Harris, etc... then SIms 6 could continue 25 years after that Sims 2/5 timestamp.

Okay, I'm going to assume you don't play a lot of Table Top RPG's. Especially not ones that have been reset a few times with new editions.

I have. And I've seen both the mess made when games with Metaplot (where each sourcebook advances the storyline) try to switch up the rules midstream (World of Darkness, Exalted, Shadowrun) and the confusion and irritation when they've gone clean slate and reset everything (Exalted 3rd ed, World of Darkness to Chronicles of Darkness, 7th Sea)

And I still feel that the Reset is cleaner.

Now, I'm not discounting lore. I've bought libraries worth of books to expand on the lore and backstories of NPC's and places in tabletop Roleplaying games. I love lore. I love canon - sometimes. I have more experience with it than any Sims player has with the Sims. By virtue of starting to play TTRPG's 15 years before The Sims existed, but still. But there are times when trying to expand the timeline and follow up just makes things more convoluted, harder to follow, and causes all sorts of continuity snarls, and the best way to straighten it all out is just to start over.