Life by You vs. Sims 5 (Rene)? Rod Humble and Paradox's Life Simulation Game

"Ivyeyed;c-18127870" wrote:
Unfortunately, they say they won't be announcing any new games at PDXCon, which means if the game is announced this year, it'll be at some other time or in some other event.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a94fa9aa436f9a376082cf5d0d7c9892/ca426ff4efa45c0c-74/s500x750/138ee7d96a12b8a1cb7ba35f528264cd85f8200a.jpg

But they are definitely still working on the game. Amanda Forrest did a podcast interview with Goddess in Gaming - a podcast about women in the games industry. She avoided talking about the game as much as possible, mostly talking about getting into writing RPG Lit books and her history in the industry, but she did say

Interviewer: And what are you doing currently at Paradox?

AF: I am... we are actually a very small team. So, we recently staffed up from three engineers to four. And we do have some outsourcing. So really we have a team of strong generalists, and we work all over the code base.

AF: I've been working - I spend a lot of time working on the world-building tool, which we're going to use in-house, but will also be user-facing, I believe.

...

AF: You know I love the get in and work on AI and gameplay, and bring life to the world. And I think that was the same with the books too, is I like to find ways to make characters express what looks like a human quality.

So I think that bodes really well. A world-building tool sounds awesome.

The latest job posting confirms this game is being made in Unity. And was only put up, like, a week ago, so the game is clearly still getting money and being worked on.

So it sounds exciting. I am trying to temper my high hopes. But who knows how long we will have to wait to learn more.

Awesome finds. Thanks for sharing.

News that I'm sharing here, because it's interesting to me and I think maybe three other people and I think two of them are probably here.

There's a new job listing, this time for a technical animator.

Things of note from this job listing:

- They'll be using Motion Capture for character animation

- They emphasize "good deformations" as an animation skill needed, so it sounds like they're going for a style that's not too rigid

- They are creating animation rigs not only for characters, but for "vehicles and props". Cars confirmed?

- They want an animator with experience with "real time" video game animation, which makes sense.

- They are using Maya and MotionBuilder.

- Since this job listing is new, they are likely moving into a new stage when it comes to game animations, so development is ongoing and hopefully progressing well

Add this to the other things we know or have been hinted at (a world-building tool, color customization, a game for a primarily female PC gamer audience, etc). The details are scarce, but I do think they have all been promising.

I also tend to think the lack of promotion is a good sign. I think they are keeping this under wraps until they are sure they have a product they believe in and can do a big reveal.

I will continue to wait patiently.

I still remember them announcing the Tectonic studio in early 2019, so it's been over 3 years. I'm really curious to see what they've been up to

I hope it's good rob humble made the sims great.Hopefully this new game is good.

"icmnfrsh;c-18180870" wrote:
I still remember them announcing the Tectonic studio in early 2019, so it's been over 3 years. I'm really curious to see what they've been up to

Same. I hope we get a teaser this year!

"LeGardePourpre;c-18181084" wrote:
Will Wright was the creator and Rod Humble was a follower.

Decades later, both did nothing amazing after The Sims.

I mean the way I see it is this.

I find The Sims 4 lacking. I'm not a hater. I've bought a bunch of packs for it. I love it. But it's not what it could be.

Right now we know of three potential upcoming life sims.

1. The Sims 5
2. Paralives
3. Unannounced Paradox Tectonic Game

1 is still going to be an EA game, and so will absolutely be plagued by the soulless money-grubbing user-experience ruining problems that plague all EA games. If there's a corner to cut, they will cut it, and if there are nickels and dimes they can tease out of the playerbase for scraps they will, because that money belongs to the big hungry businessmonsters upstairs.

2 is a first venture for many of its creators, being paid for by patreon and social media hype. I don't think it's a scam, I just think it's very big game for a very green team and they still have dozens of gameplay systems they need to build and test against each other, and the road is long and fraught and hopefully their wagon train makes it to California and they don't get lured by the call of Hasting's Cutoff.

Meanwhile 3,

3 is being led by a man who has worked on not one, not two, but three major life sims. He worked on the Sims franchise for years even before he took it over. He worked on the game during the period when I personally liked it best: The latter part of the Sims 2 and all the Sims 3. And while there's a lot of things that can be said against 3 in terms of optimization and performance, in terms of scope and ambition and character it was top notch. But even if you don't agree with that, he has still shown the ability to lead a succesful life sim game from beginning to end. And then he was CEO of Second Life.

So that's an entire career to think about, work on, practice with, hypothesize about, talk about life simulation.

It's not that I think he's the greatest coder or developer of all time. I don't know him from Adam. But if, as it seems, this is something he's doing because he really wants to? Because he had ideas and it was really exciting to him? And he seems to be being given a decent budget and free reign to follow that passion by one of the less sinister major studios out there?

IDK. That just seems like easily the most promising one. The most likely to both actually happen and actually be fun to play.

"LeGardePourpre;c-18181084" wrote:
Will Wright was the creator and Rod Humble was a follower.

Decades later, both did nothing amazing after The Sims.

I think this is sort of missing the point on their background and what the potential is for the game. Read the comment above mine.

I'm not interested in either of these.

The first one, Paralives, has been "rumored" for a very long time. It's gotten for me to the point where they either need to "poo" or get off the pot. I have been thinking for a long time that it's a scam to get Patreon money. Sorry but that's how I feel.

The second one, by this Humble character who had something to do with Second Life? HARD PASS. I have ZERO desire to play anything that even remotely looks like Second Life and I don't see him creating anything different.

But that's just me, I have OCD and I'm resistant to change. So whatever, lol.

I wish I could get TS3 to play on my computer. My beast is too advanced for it or something. I also have zero interest in an online TS5. So, TS4 is the end of the road for me and I'm very salty about that possibility.

"CarpeNocheSims;c-18185174" wrote:
I'm not interested in either of these.

The first one, Paralives, has been "rumored" for a very long time. It's gotten for me to the point where they either need to "poo" or get off the pot. I have been thinking for a long time that it's a scam to get Patreon money. Sorry but that's how I feel.

The second one, by this Humble character who had something to do with Second Life? HARD PASS. I have ZERO desire to play anything that even remotely looks like Second Life and I don't see him creating anything different.

But that's just me, I have OCD and I'm resistant to change. So whatever, lol.

I wish I could get TS3 to play on my computer. My beast is too advanced for it or something. I also have zero interest in an online TS5. So, TS4 is the end of the road for me and I'm very salty about that possibility.

Para lives is not a scam.Its an indie game, by a small team.They update on their channel often.Showing there progress there now working on live mode.

"CarpeNocheSims;c-18185174" wrote:
I'm not interested in either of these.

The first one, Paralives, has been "rumored" for a very long time. It's gotten for me to the point where they either need to "poo" or get off the pot. I have been thinking for a long time that it's a scam to get Patreon money. Sorry but that's how I feel.

Games take a long time to make. Most AAA games aren't even announced to the public until years into their development cycle, creating a false impression they got made very quickly. Indie games have to announce sooner to get funding. There are reasons to be wary of Paralives but it's not a scam.

"CarpeNocheSims;c-18185174" wrote:

The second one, by this Humble character who had something to do with Second Life? HARD PASS. I have ZERO desire to play anything that even remotely looks like Second Life and I don't see him creating anything different.

Why don't you see him creating anything different? You don't even appear to know who he is, and yet use such confidence about whether he can create something that looks "different" from SecondLife.

Rod Humble didn't create SecondLife. SL had already been running for over a decade when he took over as CEO. He just managed it for a few years from like 2014-2017 (ish? I'm not gonna google right now). It certainly adds to his resume for certain aspects of life sim games, but there's not much about it that would reflect on his design sensibilities, since he didn't design the game. He just successfully managed it for a while.

"CarpeNocheSims;c-18185174" wrote:
I wish I could get TS3 to play on my computer. My beast is too advanced for it or something. I also have zero interest in an online TS5. So, TS4 is the end of the road for me and I'm very salty about that possibility.

If you think TS3 looks interesting at all, I'd say that's a reason for you to at least not dismiss Paradox Tectonic's game out of hand. TS3 is the best example we have of Rod Humble's life sim design priorities, after all. Rod Humble did create The Sims 3, and managed it for its entire run.

It seems weird to pick now, of all times, to be salty about the future of life sim games, when the upcoming market is bigger and more varied than the genre has ever seen.

IDK, you just seemed predisposed to believe the worst about stuff that doesn't even exist yet. TS4 is already "online" and people don't seem to mind, and we don't know that TS5 online features will be any more or less invasive. Paralives is a passion project by hardcore Sims fans who really want to make a game they love. And Tectonic's game is being led by industry veterans with an unprecedented amount of freedom. To decide this early that they will all be failures feels intentionally pessimistic for no reason.