Why can't children learn magic?

"SimTrippy;c-17274865" wrote:
Who knows. But on the uplifting side, at least you get to see them do magic in CAS!

(Still.Majorly.Annoyed.About.This.)

I find this really weird tbh. Why give them the spellcaster idle if they can't even do magic?

"Luxury;c-17275389" wrote:

"SimTrippy;c-17274865" wrote:
Who knows. But on the uplifting side, at least you get to see them do magic in CAS!

(Still.Majorly.Annoyed.About.This.)

I find this really weird tbh. Why give them the spellcaster idle if they can't even do magic?

To annoy us ? no I really don't know either.

@Writin_Reg Erm if "Biology supercedes myth" there shouldn't be any magic at all? Given the complete and utter absence of real witches and wizards (folklore aside), I don't think that argument has a lot of merit since we cannot possibly know if real magical kids would be able to do magic or not.

Also it's not that they need to be able to do every single spell. Just one. Or two. Levitate their siblings, accidentally make toys disappear, give off magical sparkles when extremely annoyed. Any of that would have been better than nothing.

"lisamwitt;c-17274889" wrote:

"invisiblgirl;c-17274688" wrote:

"lisamwitt;c-17274396" wrote:
The simplest answer- teens through elders have the same body. They wear the same clothes and perform the same actions. Children would require new clothing and animations for a different sized Sim. Any time you wonder why children can't do something, THAT is the answer.
What I can't answer is why they don't want to put the time and effort into the new animations. Although, that is probably answered best by looking at why teens are the same height as adults- it was the easiest thing to do.

I agree that this is the reason, but you sort of imply that they were simply too lazy to do it. They have a budget and delivery date to meet, just like anyone else. Kids were 'out of scope'.

I wish they'd included kids, too, and even some 'accidental' magic for toddlers, since it's a life-state, but to do that, they would have needed more people and more time, or would have had to leave out things that were included. I suspect the marketing surveys don't show a huge interest in playing kids, which is why the packs tend to favour YAs. (Of course, if kids had more to do, more people might be interested in playing them.)

I don't think it was laziness at all. I don't think you can do any kind of development and be lazy. My husband is a computer programmer and he works hard, and often long hours.
I was referring more to what time and effort were allocated into. They made the easiest design choice in order to put time and effort where they wanted it to go.
And obviously, it's safe to assume that the producers had the ultimate say in this, not the developers themselves.

Sorry - I obviously read you the wrong way. I get a bit annoyed with people who think that because games aren't like a car or a piece of furniture, things you can see and touch, they don't take any work to create. Just dream it up, and it happens! Which, as you must know, is very much not the case.

"Luxury;c-17275389" wrote:

"SimTrippy;c-17274865" wrote:
Who knows. But on the uplifting side, at least you get to see them do magic in CAS!

(Still.Majorly.Annoyed.About.This.)

I find this really weird tbh. Why give them the spellcaster idle if they can't even do magic?

I suspect they maybe wanted to but ran out of time and or budget. Its the war cry of the sims 4.

"GrumpyGlowfish;c-17274956" wrote:
The reason why shows like Sabrina have this "you can't be supernatural before 16" rule is because that's the age of the target audience, so the main character has to be around that same age, and it would be boring if they were already an expert at their magic by then. I wouldn't read too much into that. Besides, Sabrina (in the reboot at least) already had powers before she turned 16, it was just her satanic baptism or whatever it's called that had to wait until her 16th birthday.

I agree with you to a certain degree. However, one of the bestselling book/movie series on magic was based around children being magical. It all depends on the plot and structure of the universe. If we look at Harry Potter – which has had more impact on magic than any other series – we can see that people under the age of eleven can do magic, they just, well, are not very good.

The issue is that if your child was magical, you could see that and experience it first-hand. Sure, it may only be two or three spells, but it would still be present and allow for a storytelling perspective. None of this nonsense about turning a teenager and your magic is suddenly there.

They could have even done it in the sense that there was a chance to pass on the magical gene. The magical child has the hidden trait until they cast their first piece of magic and it is a wonderful thing that gives your Sim a memory – oops, we do not have that – a moodlet. Because everyone can randomly become a spellcaster, the parent could turn their child who was not a spellcaster into one when they are a teenager. They would have no trait, but you know.

Instead, all we get for generation play is a bloodline trait that breaks your game.

"MidnightAura;c-17275556" wrote:

"Luxury;c-17275389" wrote:

"SimTrippy;c-17274865" wrote:
Who knows. But on the uplifting side, at least you get to see them do magic in CAS!

(Still.Majorly.Annoyed.About.This.)

I find this really weird tbh. Why give them the spellcaster idle if they can't even do magic?

I suspect they maybe wanted to but ran out of time and or budget. Its the war cry of the sims 4.

Most likely. I think they made this first and then the company was like, “No one plays anything but young adults! Don’t give children any content!” and so it was scrapped, but the aniamtions were left in.

@NoTalent Oh, I'm afraid you misunderstood me there. I wasn't making an argument that children shouldn't have magic - to the contrary, I'm 100% in the opposite boat. I only brought this is up because people were suddenly giving biological and other logical reasons why magic can only manifest in your teen years, using fictional examples to "prove" that, even though magic works differently in every work of fiction, and arguably not at all in real life. Like you said, in the end it all comes down to how a given universe is set up, which often depends on the target audience rather than any real-life sciences, and it seems to me that this is the case in TS4 as well. The target audience are teenagers and young adults, who allegedly don't play as children, so children aren't a priority. :/

It could because of making the game as PC as possible and not wanting to offend anybody with children using magic. I would love to have Tim Hunter (who Harry Potter was plagiarized from) as a character with a vampire bestie. Also, kids as mermaids could be looked upon as exploiting kids and be in inappropriate roles as kids.

As for mermaid kids, companies have to be very careful about how they portray children because of certain laws. If I had a client ask me to draw paint create a 3d model of a child mermaid I would tell them no because of how grey some of the laws are and it's better for you legally not to touch that grey area and do something that could be looked at as illegal even though I am not using a live child in my work. I had a friend who worked at a 1-hour photo shoppe years ago. He could NOT print baby's first bath, a kid in a bathing suit or bikini legally. If he found photos like that he had to let his supervisor and the police know. There was only so much he was allowed to print that was dealing with kids. It's better for companies to over sensitive where children are concerned than not sensitive enough and face prison time and fines as a result.

I also am working on a fanfic now which explains why kids can't do magic in the game officially. It has to do with a war that ended when Gemma Charm was a kid. Many children not just from prominent families were kidnapped some sacrificed for power and others forced to be turned against other spellcasters. At the end of the war, it was agreed that children would have their power sealed until they were teens in case something like that ever happened again.

Hmm...

For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.

- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase

Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.

You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.

It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.

"SilentKitty;c-17276192" wrote:
Hmm...

For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.

- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase

Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.

You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.

It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.

You have a point there. Kids performing magic would be my preference, but reacting to magic done by adults would have helped with including all ages. I really like the examples you gave. Let them see it and react to it.
Now I even have to use a mod to be able to magically clean them with scruberoo. And it makes me wonder why the developers did not allow it in the game.

I also wanted to be able to use potions on them, particularly the potion of plentiful needs. Even if it would always be the positive outcome for children. The drinking animations are already in the game so that can't be an excuse for this one.

I'm going to have to go with to hard cost to much or their lame excuse that no one plays children because they refuse to add content for them.