What is 'Realism' play for you?
Including occult and human sims, unless otherwise stated.
Forum Discussion
I personally regard “life with all its drama” and “realism play” as two separate concepts.
Spoiler
The Sims is a life simulator, it simulates life. The only way to simulate life is by introducing the possibility of death. That’s how we as humans can recognize life, for death is part of life. Life’s a -✨MYSTERY✨, and all we can do is to try to survive, both physically and mentally. This is where the drama comes in. There’s no drama without the want to survive. Survival is the key element, and it’s been the same in every major Sims game. At its core the sims is a survival game. As players we need to ensure that the sim survives for as long as possible, physically and/ or emotionally. It doesn’t matter how the sim survives, as long as the sim does survive. That’s right, even Ghosts & Vampires.
Life in The Sims 4 isn’t “realistic” to start with. If I were to translate every so called “realistic element” from the sims to actual factual real life…real life would turn out rather wacky indeed. A sim day is what, only a couple of minutes in our own life? Spare me the stress.
The way sims are born, age up, die…it’s all pretty “non-realistic” if you ask me. I wish it was like that IRL. It’s all very clean and sparkly. Sometimes it gets a little smokey. Who’s the creepy cool dude in the dark robes??
Some random lucky sim gets zapped by lightning and is utterly fine and happy again after about 5 minutes. Try that IRL. Actually don’t.
The “realistic” part depends on how I as a player decide to have my sims live their lives. It refers to the quality of life rather than simply trying to survive. If I want that quality of life to reflect real life in the most realistic way possible, I’d have to introduce “mundane” activities and chores. I’d make my sims use realistic appliances when cooking, I’d have them vacuum clean with a vacuum cleaner, I’d make them use washing machines and dryers, mow the lawn with a hand propelled Black & Decker, clean the gutters, power wash the driveway on Saturdays, force them to iron their suits before I watch them hop on their bicycles and head off to do their 9-5 salary maker job and drink way too much coffee, get a burn-out, get constipated, have “realistic” weddings, day in, day out, in other words, all that nasty stuff I really, REALLY don’t want to do or experience IRL. And that’s a household without KIDS! My goodness, the mayhem! Send help.
I can play (and live) that way for about 3 minutes before I go absolutely bonkers. My own mental survival is just as important. I don’t mind those so called realistic gameplay elements at all, in fact I do use some of them in my own game from time to time; I can really enjoy it up to a certain point, but for me there needs to be a fair balance. For every realistic kitchen appliance EA/Maxis should release a fantastical kitchen appliance as well - in that same year- such as, I dunno, something like that pigasaurus from The Flinstones that functions as a garbage disposal. It’s a pig-like creature that lives under the sink and gobbles up all the garbage. If you have ecolifestyle installed it will poop bits and pieces. Hooray! I’m already having too much fun in my head with this friggin’ thing. ?
The Sims is a life simulator, it simulates life. The only way to simulate life is by introducing the possibility of death. That’s how we as humans can recognize life, for death is part of life. Life’s a -✨MYSTERY✨, and all we can do is to try to survive, both physically and mentally. This is where the drama comes in. There’s no drama without the want to survive. Survival is the key element, and it’s been the same in every major Sims game. At its core the sims is a survival game. As players we need to ensure that the sim survives for as long as possible, physically and/ or emotionally. It doesn’t matter how the sim survives, as long as the sim does survive. That’s right, even Ghosts & Vampires.
Life in The Sims 4 isn’t “realistic” to start with. If I were to translate every so called “realistic element” from the sims to actual factual real life…real life would turn out rather wacky indeed. A sim day is what, only a couple of minutes in our own life? Spare me the stress.
The way sims are born, age up, die…it’s all pretty “non-realistic” if you ask me. I wish it was like that IRL. It’s all very clean and sparkly. Sometimes it gets a little smokey. Who’s the creepy cool dude in the dark robes??
Some random lucky sim gets zapped by lightning and is utterly fine and happy again after about 5 minutes. Try that IRL. Actually don’t.
The “realistic” part depends on how I as a player decide to have my sims live their lives. It refers to the quality of life rather than simply trying to survive. If I want that quality of life to reflect real life in the most realistic way possible, I’d have to introduce “mundane” activities and chores. I’d make my sims use realistic appliances when cooking, I’d have them vacuum clean with a vacuum cleaner, I’d make them use washing machines and dryers, mow the lawn with a hand propelled Black & Decker, clean the gutters, power wash the driveway on Saturdays, force them to iron their suits before I watch them hop on their bicycles and head off to do their 9-5 salary maker job and drink way too much coffee, get a burn-out, get constipated, have “realistic” weddings, day in, day out, in other words, all that nasty stuff I really, REALLY don’t want to do or experience IRL. And that’s a household without KIDS! My goodness, the mayhem! Send help.
I can play (and live) that way for about 3 minutes before I go absolutely bonkers. My own mental survival is just as important. I don’t mind those so called realistic gameplay elements at all, in fact I do use some of them in my own game from time to time; I can really enjoy it up to a certain point, but for me there needs to be a fair balance. For every realistic kitchen appliance EA/Maxis should release a fantastical kitchen appliance as well - in that same year- such as, I dunno, something like that pigasaurus from The Flinstones that functions as a garbage disposal. It’s a pig-like creature that lives under the sink and gobbles up all the garbage. If you have ecolifestyle installed it will poop bits and pieces. Hooray! I’m already having too much fun in my head with this friggin’ thing. ?
