The sims 5 timeline

> @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.

"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.

@DaWaterRat Oh, but The Sims isn't the same thing. It has lore, but not "book" sized information and it leaves a lot of open doors for change. The msot information we used to get was sim description, family description, town description and memories. Besides the household/family description, there's none of the others in Sims 4 (we have memories, but not in premade sims).
Take Sunset Valley for instance... We know Bella and Mortimer where there as kids, then in Sims 1 they turned into adults and had a girl named Cassandra, which then grow up to be an adult living with her father, her younger brother who was born while she was a teen and their mother had disappeared. There's not much here that can messed up by a change of "rules". Which, by the case, happened in all games... The biggest rules and the only meaningful one we had were age lenghts, that were changed in all games, we had a lot of new life stages and all of that.
The game lore is detailed but subtle. They could've made Sims 4 as a follow up to Sims 2 with a single mother Cassandra Lothario and her kid trying to find out what happened to Don Lothario (which we know was sent back to the past by some of his many lovers... most likely Dina and Nina). Then in Sims 6 we could see a new storyline for Don and Cassandra's kid and maybe Alex and Cecilia's kid.
Its just human life with a bit of science fiction/fantasy here and there. Like, if they had introduced Journey to Batuu in Sims 2/3 they could jsut ignore its existence in later games.
The SIms franchise doesn't need reboots.
They jsut thought we would be mad if they didn't add Bella and Mortimer to the base game, but I don't need them. Nobody was mad that Bob and Betty had died and weren't playable in Sims 2. They just died of old age.
I think the only thing they have to worry is taking a premade sim out of character, like they did to the Caliente/Lothario and Dustin Broke in SIms 4. All of the others are pretty ok... maybe Lilith didn't need to me evil/mean, but meh... ok... maybe she turned into a bitter woman after her parents divorced or something.