Interesting notion you have there. TBH, I just started playing TS4 this year, although, I've been playing the series since The Sims. I missed the initial darkest era of TS4 and how glad am I that I missed it. :D
I do agree with most of your points... and I knew that TS4 was supposed to be an online game. I have to admit, being an avid the Sims player, I do agree that the 'life' that I'm playing is kinda repetitive. The enjoyment when I first started to play the series is not there.. perhaps, I'm growing old and my expectation is higher.
There might be TS5 and there might be not.. but, I would rather focus on what we have at the moment. How best they can improve TS4 and keep engaging the players and increasing the market penetration and expanding the market segmentation from the cross-platforms. The higher the ROI, the better for the investors, developers and us, in general.
Ideally, TS5 should be something better than the predecessor series.. And if the franchise is still valid in the future.. I'm not even surprised if there'll be TS6, TS7, and so on, because the technology is evolving every day.
What I want the TS5 to give is incorporating something new. 'New' here means, new technology.. such as VR.. (which I know that some of the simmers can't agree with this, as I discussed it in a different thread).
Each TS series should give us something 'new' and different instead of recycling the same methods or perhaps the engine. But of course, maintaining the core game play because that is what keeping the players to keep on playing this game. :)
