Rabbitholes do two things. They help you paper over incredibly boring elements of gameplay (GTW careers are dull and repetitive to me, so just being able to have a sim go off to do their own thing is okay), and they're a trick to have sims kind of be in an area without taking up as much computing power. The latter was necessary in a game like sims 3 where you had to have a lot of other sims around without having your computer melt into so much slag. You'll note that there are few rabbithole locations on sims 4 maps.
That said, tradeoffs absolutely do have to be made. Time a developer spends on a boring minutiae of sim life is time they aren't spending on some other feature, and they do have to decide where they want to spend the computing powers they can expect. (Again, I expect consoles to wind up providing the benchmarks they aim for.)
"SimsILikeSims;c-17108212" wrote:
Alternatively, you can read guides and forums and wikis online to find out how to build your own computer, or for about $50 buy a book with instructions (or find one used/on sale maybe for less). You can build a decent computer yourself and save some money that way, plus maybe make money on the side building computers, depending on your disability limitations. If you have trouble maneuvering your body to install hardware, you can still buy a complete system without operating system preinstalled and install your own operating system to save money (don't forget the anti-virus software). Just be sure to have a different computer hooked up to the internet while you are doing this in case you need to refer to information online. If you have only one monitor, be sure to have printed instructions available when connecting the new computer to the internet. Fortunately, plug & play and USB devices make it easier than it used to be to connect devices like mouse, keyboard, and printer. Pro tip - you will likely need a flashlight to make sure you are lining connections up properly.
Premade computers are getting pretty close to DIY boxes in terms of price. And while you can save money by using a linux OS instead of windows, I really don't suggest trying to set up WINE unless you actually enjoy wrangling computers as a hobby. In short, there are only so many cost-cutting measures available, and there's only so much money they can save you.
