Today a friend posted an article about the COVID pandemic that she had found. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/what-pandemic-doing-our-brains/618221/?fbclid=IwAR27cb_ESDso1_oUjec91G2bK22HCQl9g2wkoG473Zgc9MxDj5Xylyfb3BsWhat I found interesting is the amount of time that the author spent talking about The Sims franchise.She said that it's repetitive. I don't find it so. I find that especially TS4 (where you can turn off autonomy) is much freer for me. I can finally have them do what I want so that I can use *my* imagination to tell my stories. I never run out of things to do with them (even when I only had base game but there is so much more that I can do now that I have the EPs and GPs.)It took me a lot of time to figure out why people were complaining about how they found the other games gave them so much more. I had to watch a lot of gamer videos. Then I realized, they wanted it to all unfold *for* them and be much more like watching a drama play back, rather than truly making their own dramas.I think it's cool that I can do what I want. But I also feel for the people who want to have the game make choices for them that they then have to cope with. We're back to the old TS2 "As played by" commercial tag: How do you play?

Hmm, in my opinion the Sims 2 and the Sims 3 never made choices for you. I think this is a misconception. You made the choices and the game simply played them out. For example: A lot of people say they were annoyed that their sims would not want to clean and that the game felt like it was intrusive. But in reality, they are the ones who made their sims either "lazy" or "sloppy". The Sims 2 and 3 doesn't make choices for you, you choose the sims personality in the CAS, the game then plays it out for you.Another example: If you want two sims to get together then give them compatible traits and aspirations? You have the choice. If you want two sims to like each other but you give them conflicting traits, then that's your fault, the game is basically doing what you chose. The problem with the Sims 4 is not that it doesn't make choices for you. It is that it doesn't play out your choices. If I choose my sim to be mean, then I want them to do mean stuff, if I want my two sims to not get along because of their traits then I want to actually see them argue. So yeah, Sims 2 and 3: You make the choices, the game plays them outSims 4: You make choices, the game ignores them and you have to manually instigate them and imagine they happened naturally.

I like to do my own thing. I've found Sims 4 allows the player to have more control over what happens in their game than the other Iterations. I like the level of control Sims 4 has given me. I can do what I want. I agree with you that it seems they want it all to unfold for them. I've even seen people complain that there's no drama and if they want drama they have to make it happen. Well, I think if someone wants drama in their game they should have to make it happen. I don't want drama in my game and I certainly don't want it forced on me just because someone who wants it in their game is too lazy to make it happen themselves. The whole point of the Sims is that the player chooses what happens in their game and how their stories play out. Having the game do it for us would be taking away that creative freedom that we currently have in the Sims 4.

"Sallycutecat;c-17828977" wrote:I like to do my own thing. I've found Sims 4 allows the player to have more control over what happens in their game than the other Iterations. I like the level of control Sims 4 has given me. I can do what I want. I agree with you that it seems they want it all to unfold for them. I've even seen people complain that there's no drama and if they want drama they have to make it happen. Well, I think if someone wants drama in their game they should have to make it happen. I don't want drama in my game and I certainly don't want it forced on me just because someone who wants it in their game is too lazy to make it happen themselves. The whole point of the Sims is that the player chooses what happens in their game and how their stories play out. Having the game do it for us would be taking away that creative freedom that we currently have in the Sims 4.@Sallycutecat I don't understand it when people say you can't do what you want in the previous games. Of course you can, you always could. In which way did the previous games restrict you from doing that? Can you give an example?In the previous games you made all the choices like I mentioned in my previous post. In the Sims 4 I find even if you want to make the drama happen, it doesn't happen. You have to imagine so much because a lot of things just don't happen. When I decide to cheat in a relationship for drama to happen, it's so mild it's almost nothing. Like I'm trying to get sims to not like each other and I can't no matter how much I try. The Sims 4 doesn't allow for creative freedom at all in my opinion, it simply forces you to imagine the things you want to happen because it doesn't do it.

"SimmerGeorge;c-17829014" wrote:"Sallycutecat;c-17828977" wrote:I like to do my own thing. I've found Sims 4 allows the player to have more control over what happens in their game than the other Iterations. I like the level of control Sims 4 has given me. I can do what I want. I agree with you that it seems they want it all to unfold for them. I've even seen people complain that there's no drama and if they want drama they have to make it happen. Well, I think if someone wants drama in their game they should have to make it happen. I don't want drama in my game and I certainly don't want it forced on me just because someone who wants it in their game is too lazy to make it happen themselves. The whole point of the Sims is that the player chooses what happens in their game and how their stories play out. Having the game do it for us would be taking away that creative freedom that we currently have in the Sims 4.@Sallycutecat I don't understand it when people say you can't do what you want in the previous games. Of course you can, you always could. In which way did the previous games restrict you from doing that? Can you give an example?In the previous games you made all the choices like I mentioned in my previous post. In the Sims 4 I find even if you want to make the drama happen, it doesn't happen. You have to imagine so much because a lot of things just don't happen. When I decide to cheat in a relationship for drama to happen, it's so mild it's almost nothing. Like I'm trying to get sims to not like each other and I can't no matter how much I try. The Sims 4 doesn't allow for creative freedom at all in my opinion, it simply forces you to imagine the things you want to happen because it doesn't do it. I never said you can't do what you want in the previous games. I said Sims 4 allows the player to have more control than the previous ones. That's not saying there was no control in the others. Since you asked, one of the things I found restricted me from doing what I wanted was the aspiration meter in Sims 2. Like I said, I like to do my own thing and because I didn't do what the game rolled as a want for my Sim, their aspiration meter was often in the red and then the Sim needed therapy instead of doing what I wanted them to do. Also the need decay was so fast that I couldn't have them do what I wanted. With Sims 3 it didn't run on my computer very well and the lag and glitches actually prevented me from playing the game. This was a huge restriction on being able to do what I want.

"Sallycutecat;c-17829081" wrote:"SimmerGeorge;c-17829014" wrote:"Sallycutecat;c-17828977" wrote:I like to do my own thing. I've found Sims 4 allows the player to have more control over what happens in their game than the other Iterations. I like the level of control Sims 4 has given me. I can do what I want. I agree with you that it seems they want it all to unfold for them. I've even seen people complain that there's no drama and if they want drama they have to make it happen. Well, I think if someone wants drama in their game they should have to make it happen. I don't want drama in my game and I certainly don't want it forced on me just because someone who wants it in their game is too lazy to make it happen themselves. The whole point of the Sims is that the player chooses what happens in their game and how their stories play out. Having the game do it for us would be taking away that creative freedom that we currently have in the Sims 4.@Sallycutecat I don't understand it when people say you can't do what you want in the previous games. Of course you can, you always could. In which way did the previous games restrict you from doing that? Can you give an example?In the previous games you made all the choices like I mentioned in my previous post. In the Sims 4 I find even if you want to make the drama happen, it doesn't happen. You have to imagine so much because a lot of things just don't happen. When I decide to cheat in a relationship for drama to happen, it's so mild it's almost nothing. Like I'm trying to get sims to not like each other and I can't no matter how much I try. The Sims 4 doesn't allow for creative freedom at all in my opinion, it simply forces you to imagine the things you want to happen because it doesn't do it. I never said you can't do what you want in the previous games. I said Sims 4 allows the player to have more control than the previous ones. That's not saying there was no control in the others. Since you asked, one of the things I found restricted me from doing what I wanted was the aspiration meter in Sims 2. Like I said, I like to do my own thing and because I didn't do what the game rolled as a want for my Sim, their aspiration meter was often in the red and then the Sim needed therapy instead of doing what I wanted them to do. Also the need decay was so fast that I couldn't have them do what I wanted. With Sims 3 it didn't run on my computer very well and the lag and glitches actually prevented me from playing the game. This was a huge restriction on being able to do what I want. @Sallycutecat But then again, you choose what wants your sims get and if you want to have a sim with a family then give them the right aspiration? This way it won't go red? Easy as that, it's all your choice. For me the Sims 4 doesn't allow for any more control than previous games but I would love to hear an example as to how it gives you more control? I feel like the sims 4 is a way too restricted experience and it also because it is this way it is very difficult to generate the drama one might want since the sims will be friendly to each other even after you made them fight. Also the emotions system in the Sims 4 is also very restricting, just like the wants, but since it's also so unstable it makes it hard to play the game without cheating since your sims emotions are way to uncontrollable. The glitches and bugs are all over the Sims 4 which prevents me from playing certain saves and the retail system doesn't work in my game either, or dine out. For me the Sims 4 doesn't allow for any more control than the previous games. And at the end of the day this is supposed to be a game and a game is supposed to provide challenge and do stuff on its own. If not then it's not a game, it's just a dollhouse. If I wanted to play with dolls I can do it without the Sims.

The Sims in the mainstream media

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EnkiSchmidt
Hero
5 years ago
"KatAnubis;c-17830566" wrote:
I get the feeling that people aren't bothering to read the initial article.

I tried, but my own pandemic experience is so vastly different from hers that I only skimmed that article after the first few sentences. For me as a young Gen X/Older Millennial it is hard to imagine how someone can feel hollow with the internet at their disposal and all the opportunities to learn and to connect to people. I did, however, take from the article that the author is only using The Sims as a metaphor for her own situation, she doesn't seem to be a gamer (else she'd probably used 1090s rpgs or MMO quest/leveling as her metaphor of choice).

With that out of the way, I don't find the game repetitive. I'm a story player and the same task to me feels different depending on what sims I have them do. Two rivals going up the slopes to ski will feel different than a happy family, despite me clicking the exact same sequence of pie menu strings. It's all in my head and when the game slaps a sentiment on my sims, that is already too much for me. The game doesn't know my sims, its job is to simulate the weather, the workplace performance, basically everything physical in the outside world.
For this reason Sims 4 works for me. (Sims 2 still makes me feel being in control more than Sims 4, despite the wants/fears system that is very easily cheesed by abusing dates.) However, as you already said, if one wants to plunge into a dynamic world to adventure in, then Sims 4 comes across as bland and limited. There's no consistency in sims actions, they only live in the moment, governed by their current emotional state. I can see how that hit home with the article's author, seeing how trapped and disconnected from the "real" world she feels.

I played a (indefinitely on hold) legacy on the side where I don't allow a story (otherwise I'd get distracted from the legacy goals and never finish that playthrough). After four generations of grinding skills and aspirations I still wouldn't call the game repetitive, but certainly not challenging. The "challenge" of Sims 4 is not surviving, but striving in the most efficient way. In that it compares to browser or idle games: you are never in danger of "losing", the only question is how far you progress in an hour.

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The Sims in the mainstream media

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