Rene Speculation: Lore and Narrative Design
A thread to talk about all things related to lore and narrative elements in Project Rene.
Forum Discussion
"simmerorigin;c-18198055" wrote:
"ncisGibbs02;c-18198041" wrote:
What if they have to choose between lore and build mode? How do they choose which gets the most attention? Hopefully we can influence them as storytelling and lore really needs focusing on.
Sims 4 has great worlds that are lovely to look at. The build tool is the best. CAS has a lot of elements and clothes.
What it lacks is the ability to play out stories and consequences. I have to imagine Ralph still remembers Sally beat him at chess so that’s why he’s going to give a mean greeting at the park. Lavania Chopra was forced to retire as mayor to make way for someone younger so she’s plotting her revenge on the villagers of Henford-on-Bagley.
I love playing Pleasantview in Sims 2 as you can get right into the story of who lives there. I would love that captured in Sims 5 with updated graphics. ?
It’s one thing to make each premade family with lore but connecting them to each other is what really makes the town shine.
I agree with the point about imaging things in your head. A lot of video essays have been made about this topic. Carl’s Sims Guide has a great one with over 100k views:
https://youtu.be/7WDDnET2Sh8
Thanks for the video. Bookmarked! ? 100% agree that it would be better if Sims engaged in making their own story sometimes. The worlds of Sims 4 don’t feel alive.
Even the newer Neighbourhood Stories addition has issues.
Enable adoption and all 8 slots get filled before it stops. It’s not a natural progression. Both pets and kids don’t stop until the set limit. I’m constantly getting rid of the extras and end up unticking adoption. Not everyone would add six or seven extra people constantly!
For jobs, Sims are constantly leaving and getting new jobs but it’s random.
The only thing that adds a bit of spice is the ‘accidental deaths’ but some of the things are too silly for me to enjoy. Cereal catching on fire?! ???♂️."simmerorigin;c-18198107" wrote:
Some of the Strangetown families are iconic as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrn1_-J7nIA&list=PLETPCDPU4vUs7EkTOmVHKdMs34Td6TpBU&index=11&ab_channel=Plumbella
Great video suggestion! ?.
I must play Strangetown again."simmerorigin;c-18198977" wrote:
"Cangwen;c-18198227" wrote:
I personally wouldn't mind each game being its own narrative as long as they spend time on lore and world-building. I also wouldn't mind if they take existing sims and give them different narratives.
That's a fair point. But I would add that continuing on already established lore allows for little error for the team to "screw up" by trying something new. When something new is tried, I notice there's a considerable failure rate.
Playing it safe is how we got The Sims 4."Cangwen;c-18199308" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18198977" wrote:
"Cangwen;c-18198227" wrote:
I personally wouldn't mind each game being its own narrative as long as they spend time on lore and world-building. I also wouldn't mind if they take existing sims and give them different narratives.
That's a fair point. But I would add that continuing on already established lore allows for little error for the team to "screw up" by trying something new. When something new is tried, I notice there's a considerable failure rate.
Playing it safe is how we got The Sims 4.
Strong disagree. Sims 4 was anything but safe. They went for a online game with Olympus and changed that last minute. Then they cut core features (hardly what I call playing it safe). Like did the team think fans would just accept everything missing?"LeGardePourpre;c-18199947" wrote:
It becomes like Marvel and Star Wars universes with Canon and non-canonical timelines.
The starting point of The Sims Universe (TSU) was SimCity and Malcolm Landgraab.
The problem is that Sims "lore" is some Frankenstein monster that is made up as they went along.
Malcolm Landgraab, as you cited, has been through three or four "reboots" by now. First, his debut as the pale skinned, dark haired, bespectacled property developer who has no qualms about bending a city government to his will.
He makes no appearances in the main Sims 1 outside of references, however in the console version, this is vastly expanded with a compatible introduction of Malcolm's family and personality, including his children Dudley and Mimi. (As an aside, it annoyed me immensely that history graduate and self proclaimed Sims lore advocate Plumbella did an "entire history" of the Landgraab family and had no idea Dudley and Mimi Landgraab existed because she didn't personally didn't play the console games, but decided not to scroll down the Sims Wikia page she was reading off word for word and actually did some research).
While referenced in the Sims 2 base game, along with other Sims 1 and SimCity references, the concept was completely abandoned any notion of sticking to "lore" after the base game. Malcolm, for example, was changed to a tanned skinned blonde childless playboy who inherited his businesses and saw them more of a burden. You could say the previous Malcolm Landgraabs were one of the previous Malcolms in his family tree, however, none of them have Dudley and Mimi as children.
By the time Sims 3 rolls around, they decided to reboot him again, this time as a pale skinned blonde kid and essentially a secondary character to his own mother that was newly added to lore, meme-boss Nancy, who the community and content creators seem to view as the main Landgraab.
The reality is, when it came to lore, the Sims 4 did the same thing as 2 and 3 when it comes to the separate universe thing, just the difference is, they said it out loud and didn't restrict themselves to one loose time period.
The Sims 2 didn't so much as continue with Sims 1's lore as much as as it did kill everyone with a resemblance of a story and replace them with their trashy soap opera children who have zero concept of a healthy relationship, and pretty much ignored a fair bit of the limited lore the Sims 1 established.
For example, they gave Jennifer Pleasant's one interest to her brother Daniel, and gave her a desire for a dream job that isn't even in the game (I guess because only boys can like sports, girls like fashion and shoes!).
Michael, despite being a fresh college graduate and starting his life in the Sims 1, dies of old age 25 years later (I guess Maxis think people in their mid to late 40s are so old they may as well be dead, which I guess tracks with their target audience).
And speaking of Michael, and Bella, I find the whole whitewashing scandal of the Sims 4 a bit ironic, when the Sims 2 arguably did something worse. While not established as siblings, both of them in the Sims 1 had heads in game files listed as Asian as the textures. Michael even goes one step further and has a head with a mesh labelled Asian, and even with TS1's limited graphics quality, and the distance from the Sims you played the game at, you could clearly tell he was supposed to be Asian. Meanwhile the Sims 2 rolls around and makes Bella a generic tanned European/Latina woman, and since they decided to make Michael her brother, changed his entire ethnic identity to fit Bella's new generic one, giving him a face that is completely different. This was further compounded by the Sims 2's CAS being so limited that you couldn't really deviate from the default face 1 and 2 too much without looking like a distorted inhuman mess (see default faces 3 through 32 that generated NPCs spawned with) that creating a convincing looking Asian sim was extremely difficult.
And this is before we get into the Sims 3, which abandoned the lore of the previous two games to create its own. In my opinion, the Sims 4 deviates as much as 2 and 3 did, just with the characters they perceived as the most popular (Bella and Mortimer, the Caliente sisters and Don, Nancy Landgraab, the Pleasant sisters, etc) all as young adults even though they exist from different eras, and due to social media being much more present, having to say what practices they have done before out loud. Not to mention being magnified by the Sims 4 other failings at launch.
I'm going to stop here for now as this topic of lore gets me wound up too much and I get bitter and go on too many tangents that makes my posts unintelligible. It is clear that my personal opinions differ greatly from the wider community's.
I'd personally wish they'd go back to the TS1 period, perhaps the period in between TS1 and 2 before seemingly the entire neighbourhood collectively kicks the bucket at once.- Two articles on continuing Sims lore in the Sims 5.
The Sims 5 Has to Give Closure to the Series' Shakespearean Star-Crossed Lovers
The Sims 5 should have what it takes to finally bring closure to a forbidden romance that some Simmers have waited years to be resolved.
One of the most endearing themes in storytelling is romance, and none more compelling than forbidden romance between star-crossed lovers. The Sims has such a romance in its rival families of the Capps and the Montys from The Sims 2, which mirrors one of the greatest romances ever told by one of the greatest writers in the English canon: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Neither their romance nor the rivalry between their families was ever resolved in The Sims 2, leaving players with an open ending throughout The Sims 3 or 4. The Sims 5 has the opportunity to set the fate star-crossed lovers right and put players' hearts to rest.
More here:
https://gamerant.com/sims-5-shakespeare-reference-romeo-monty-juliette-capp-family-drama-lore/
The Sims 5 Needs to Reopen the Case of the Caliente Sisters
The Sims 5 could solve the biggest mystery in the series by investigating two sisters with dodgy connections and worse intentions.
One of the most enduring mysteries of The Sims is the disappearance of Bella Goth. This happens in The Sims 2, and the controversy has been discussed on fan forums for nearly two decades. So far, players are still no closer to solving the mystery now than when The Sims 2 was released. One of the issues that make the mystery so hard to unravel is the number of moving parts, one of which is the Caliente sisters.
More here:
https://gamerant.com/the-sims-2-caliente-sisters-bella-goth-disappearance-alien-abduction-reopen-case/ "simgirl1010;c-18197686" wrote:
Game lore is the one feature that doesn't interest me at all. I've always deleted the majority of the game created characters while keeping a few just to have some sims in the background as friends/coworkers/schoolmates for my created sims.
I've played one Maxis sim and that was Agnes Crumplebotton for a Sims 3 story challenge.
The narrative features sound interesting but only as they pertain to my created sims.
What was your first Sims game?"g01denswan;c-18197724" wrote:
I too have been playing since The Sims and have never played any pre-made character except for the Newbies. I would rather they spend the money on more interactions and animations instead of on things that are of no use to me.
I think the Narrative Designer will be working by themself in designing the lore independently of the animators and software engineers."g01denswan;c-18197976" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18197924" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197841" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18197766" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197764" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18197736" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197724" wrote:
I too have been playing since The Sims and have never played any pre-made character except for the Newbies. I would rather they spend the money on more interactions and animations instead of on things that are of no use to me.
I think the Narrative Designer will be working by themself in designing the lore independently of the animators and software engineers.
The money still comes out of The Sims budget, and I would like it to be spent on things we can’t do ourselves. We’ll be able to create our own sims, or download sims that other simmers create.
I don't care much for CAS, but I'm not going to suggest that money shouldn't be allocated to that because I know there are other players who care about it.
Nobody is suggesting that you should suggest that money shouldn’t be allocated to CAS. I just stated my preference for the money to be used for interactions and animations instead since I don’t play with pre-made characters. It’s no different from you hoping for the money to be spent on characters with backstories instead of interactions and animations.
Okay, thanks for clarifying. It sounded like you were suggesting that you were hoping that the Sims Team doesn't take money out of the budget for things you personally don't care about, like lore, at the expense of everyone else who cares about it. I would not want to subject other fans to that trade-off, which is why I did not say I want money to be spent on characters with backstories instead of interactions and animations and I did make the point to say "I'm not going to suggest that money shouldn't be allocated to that"
I think we both agree that we all need to be somewhat selfless here as there are many fans with different priorities.
Unfortunately, there’s always a trade-off as our wants for the game is unlimited while Maxis has a limited budget. So every time we ask for something, we’re being selfish even if we don’t state what we would prefer to be excluded. Let’s not lie to ourselves to feel better about not being selfless. ?
you mean to tell us they can't afford to do what sims 2 accomplished 20 years ago?"bella_goth;c-18197977" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197976" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18197924" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197841" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18197766" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197764" wrote:
"simmerorigin;c-18197736" wrote:
"g01denswan;c-18197724" wrote:
I too have been playing since The Sims and have never played any pre-made character except for the Newbies. I would rather they spend the money on more interactions and animations instead of on things that are of no use to me.
I think the Narrative Designer will be working by themself in designing the lore independently of the animators and software engineers.
The money still comes out of The Sims budget, and I would like it to be spent on things we can’t do ourselves. We’ll be able to create our own sims, or download sims that other simmers create.
I don't care much for CAS, but I'm not going to suggest that money shouldn't be allocated to that because I know there are other players who care about it.
Nobody is suggesting that you should suggest that money shouldn’t be allocated to CAS. I just stated my preference for the money to be used for interactions and animations instead since I don’t play with pre-made characters. It’s no different from you hoping for the money to be spent on characters with backstories instead of interactions and animations.
Okay, thanks for clarifying. It sounded like you were suggesting that you were hoping that the Sims Team doesn't take money out of the budget for things you personally don't care about, like lore, at the expense of everyone else who cares about it. I would not want to subject other fans to that trade-off, which is why I did not say I want money to be spent on characters with backstories instead of interactions and animations and I did make the point to say "I'm not going to suggest that money shouldn't be allocated to that"
I think we both agree that we all need to be somewhat selfless here as there are many fans with different priorities.
Unfortunately, there’s always a trade-off as our wants for the game is unlimited while Maxis has a limited budget. So every time we ask for something, we’re being selfish even if we don’t state what we would prefer to be excluded. Let’s not lie to ourselves to feel better about not being selfless. ?
you mean to tell us they can't afford to do what sims 2 accomplished 20 years ago?
I’m telling you that Maxis has a limited budget so cannot add everything we all want to the game. The Sims 2 also didn’t have everything we want. None of the previous games have everything we want.
