Rene Speculation: Lore and Narrative Design

"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.

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.

"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.

"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.

"Thetford;c-18202690" wrote:

"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.

I hear you, BUT I would say lore really starts with the Sims 2 due to foundational technology like family trees and memory. You're right the transition from Sims 1 to 2 isn't perfect, but most of the "lore" people reference goes back to Sims 2, not Sims 1.

Yes, Sims 3 did not strictly follow the lore and I have issues with it. However, they at least put it on the same timeline in the past.

Sims 4 is totally left-field. Incomparable. Not even a whiff of pretense that lore was being followed.

I think it'd be cool if they brought back a big collection of iconic townies from all of the games for 5, but as they're most recognisable, no "20 years in the future", or as children thing. The more nostalgic references to old games they add the better really

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/

The Sims Team, if researching lore, needs to spend a lot of time in the rabbithole of the Sims Fandom site. It documents everything!
https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Premade_families

Another article on lore:
https://gamerant.com/sims-5-4-lore-families-timeline-bella-goth-johnny-zest/

The Sims 5 Should Save the Timeline From Sims 4's Biggest Blunder

The Sims 5 has a chance to correct the biggest mistake The Sims 4 made that was unpopular with players and messed up a key part of the series.

It might be surprising to discover that, despite being a life simulator, one of the most important parts of The Sims series is the lore regarding the pre-made families, the presence of the occults, and the timeline. Even as early as The Sims, lore played a fundamental part of The Sims experience for many players, though it was in The Sims 2 that the lore expanded and a proper timeline was established. Players were happy to follow the events of this timeline until the launch of The Sims 4, which broke with tradition.

While previous releases in The Sims series followed the same timeline, albeit in a non-linear fashion, The Sims 4 was rather set in an alternate universe where none of the events from the previous games had happened. This was an incredibly controversial and widely unpopular move, as it meant removing many fan-favorite pre-made families such as The Sims tutorial family. In addition to removing The Sims 4 from the original timeline, many aspects of the lore became superficial in The Sims 4, rarely going further than the family bio.

In addition to removing popular families integral to The Sims lore, many of the mysteries surrounding the pre-made families such as the Bella Goth drama have been abandoned in favor of the new alternate timeline. Players who were expecting some kind of resolution to the drama instead have been given a world where some of the most compelling events of The Sims never existed. This leaves many questions that won't be answered unless The Sims 5 returns to The Sims' original timeline, instead of sticking to The Sims 4's alternate reality.

The disappearance of Bella Goth set up a massive conspiracy that spanned worlds in The Sims 2, and its legacy continued into The Sims 3. The different families created a legacy of lore in The Sims, and all of that was completely abandoned when The Sims 4 was set in an alternate timeline. Abandoning one of the most popular parts of a series wasn't a popular move among players, and The Sims 5 needs to return to the original timeline to reassert its place.

One of the most frustrating parts about the lore of The Sims 4 is how shallow it is: character and family bios will state that certain Sims have relationships with each other and other households, when in reality the Sims don't know each other at all. The exception to this rule are Sims who are married to each other, which feels weirdly old-fashioned for a series that markets itself as progressive, but it also gets really weird in some instances with some unfortunate consequences.

For example, Johnny Zest is the disinherited child of the Landgraabs, yet he doesn't appear on their family tree, nor do any of the Landgraabs or Johnny have any relationship with each other, even a negative one. The lore in The Sims 4 is so perfunctory that it's possible for Johnny Zest to enter a romantic relationship with his immediate family members. This is because, unlike previous games in The Sims, pre-made Sim families' relationships largely aren't acknowledged beyond the family bio.

The Sims 5 needs to fix these parts of the lore, and preferably make a return to the original timeline to resolve the lore questions and mysteries introduced earlier in the series. These fixes need to include gameplay, so that lore mentioned in family bios and descriptions are carried through in live mode, creating a better experience for players that doesn't feel superficial and something they can get invested in and play through themselves.