I had to laugh while watching the Maxis Monthly vod. OMG What were they thinking? The only reason I watched that vod was to find out when we can expect some bug fixes or some features for Island Living that had been left out. And they lead off with that horrid bright blue loading screen? Come on, teams! We know for a fact you guys can do better than this. We can see the teams are being micro-managed to death simply in the way new ideas are so poorly executed, why packs feel incomplete and in how buggy the game is. Granted, there were features they talked about that I might enjoy playing around with, but not enough to take my chances at downloading another update. I don't care how much fluff they add to it, nothing will make me install it. My one and only hope for this rebranding is for it to be one of the last steps before they finally do the conversion. All the free stuff for the base game, changing CAS by adding a bit of a storyline element and a trait randomizer, then (shudder) creating new pack art and a very puzzling and ugly new loading screen, is all happening so the Simmers with older systems get some surprises before their support is dropped. And from the sound of it that will be happening after Realm Of Magic is released. While we appreciate the effort that went into the new pack art and loading screen, we cannot say we appreciate the final product as it was presented to us. It's kinda cute they think we're little kids all excited and jumping in glee because of these changes. LOL If that was the reaction they were hoping for....I can't say what I want to say here so use your imagination. :p Oh, speaking of imagination, how about some cool new ideas for gameplay rather than fixing stuff that wasn't broken or was one of the things we have never asked to be changed/altered or generally made unrecognizeable?
Of all the awesome things waiting to be put into the game, this update was the best idea they could come up with? And the most important components of the update worthy of being the main topics of this vod were the CAS changes and all the evironmental decor? If that's the case I don't even want to know what else is in that update. And speaking of updates, how about splitting these into two parts. One part for bug fixes and the second part for the fluff they like to add, and some of us don't want. Then allow us to choose of what we think is important to download. Any changes that need to be made to the base game when they release a new pack of any kind, should be included in the pack itself. I have never quite understood why these pre-pack updates were needed. Or why they always include more CAS and B/B assets that almost always should have been included in the pack being released. Sorry, I am getting way off topic here. I'm just so tired of nothing being done to make this game a great game. Right now it is somewhere in the middle. Not bad but not very good either. And from the way the gurus have been talking, Sims5 is still three to four years away. Okay, if they think Sims4 is capable of evolving into a great game, EA needs to give the teams more time and resources, and the right working environment so they can create the kind of content the fans want and the game desperately needs. Who knows how much money EA paid for the new art work that, so far, has not been well received by this community. What a huge waste. The teams, some of them having been with the franchise most of their adult lives, could have done a much better job with the art work and the color scheme. I hate to think what the other choices they had to choose from were like if this was the best one they had to go with.
But we are stuck with it, I guess. I'll probably take another look at the vod later today. Maybe my laughter drowned out one of the gurus talking about something important and I missed it. Anything is possible.
