"Triplis;c-17041613" wrote:
"sawdust;c-17041607" wrote:
When you build a sandcastle in real life you either a) build above the high tide mark or b) you build so the tide can wash it away. Your choice, not the tide. :)
I mean, you're describing how you handle the fact that you're building on a fundamentally unstable area. This game really isn't that different from such a framing. It's when you have no idea where the tide is and what it looks like that your experience is most likely to be upsetting. I remember early in TS4's life, the first time I had an important relationship culled (I believe a high romance - this was before they improved culling to try to exclude important relationships, I assume). It was not fun, I can tell you that. I did get a better sense of where the boundaries are though. Not that I should have had to, but if we're going to focus on an analogy about sandcastles, well there you go.
I get what you're saying and I believe you are correct when you say "this game really isn't that different from such a framing (ie unstable area)". And therein, imo, lies the problem. The moment I read that the Sims would be emotion driven I suspected this game would be a mess because that's what happens in real life when people are motivated by their emotions. It's why the Sims are all the same. Being sad, angry whatever, is the same for all. What prompts those emotions are different according to our traits but the emotion itself? Is the same. Unfortunately emotions are manipulated by events and/or objects so we see Sims with opposite traits being affected the exact same way. I can remember in Sims 3, Sunset Valley, down at the main street complex (you know where the Cinema etc were). A big fight broke out between two Sims. Everyone reacted differently to it. The evil and dare devil type Sims cheered, the good Sims did the hands over the mouth thing and were horrified and the cowards ran away but you felt like you were among real people as each reacted differently. Even in Sims 2 I can recount many times when I felt like they were little humans and I had trouble losing them or getting rid of them, even the ones I didn't like. Sims 4? I don't care at all. I am constantly going into world manager and deleting Sims that serve no purpose or I just don't like the look of. I am just not connected to any of them like I was in prior games.
Half the time the emotions don't even make sense. Awhile back I thought I'd give the game another go so created my two favourite Sims and started playing. At one stage they went on a holiday to Granite Falls for about 3 days. When they got back my male Sim came home from work all that following week "tense" with the moodlet saying "he needed a holiday". I kept yelling at him "you just had one ya good for nothing so and so" but it didn't make a difference he'd come home tense the next day too. ;) The point being there was nothing happening to warrant it. At least when my Sims 3 Sims got jaded it was because I forced them to get that last point to max out a skill. "Too bad ya hunger and sleep and fun level are in the red, you'll get that darn point first and then you can celebrate" (or collapse, whichever comes first >:) ).
Ah well, no point bleating. The game is what it is. I think I could adapt to the different way the game plays if the Sims themselves were as individual as they were in past iterations but unfortunately they're not. Although, 3 more ways to watch my Sim sit at a computer to make a living is a bit hard to take. They could have made freelance bartenders or dog trainers or as I saw one Simmer say recently introduce nectar making again, but ... sigh... there ya go. (shrug)
I'll have to go check out what mods you're making as I will be in need of some a bit later on. :)
