What you think we could use in the sims 5?

"ClarionOfJoy;c-17452092" wrote:

"kwanzaabot;c-17451666" wrote:

"ClarionOfJoy;c-17451032" wrote:

"kwanzaabot;c-17450479" wrote:

"ClarionOfJoy;c-17449578" wrote:

"kwanzaabot;c-17448893" wrote:
If they're going to do open world again, it needs to have stuff to do in it.

Because, and I fully acknowledge this is a controversial opinion, but open world in TS3 just wasn't very good.

Forget the community lots for this discussion, community lot gameplay isn't open world. Community lots are just... basic Sims gameplay. Open world is what you do in the spaces between those lots. It's about visiting locations that you can't build yourself (although in TS5, you should be able to build anything you see. ANYTHING. Let's take the TS4 build tools and dial them up to 11).

So, open-world gameplay in TS3 was about the space between lots. But the space between lots in TS3 was about as full of content as the space between lots in 4, except 4 is prettier.

TS3 had collectibles. Cool. 4 has collectibles. What else? You could see Sims living in the world. Cool. So basically that describes TS4 walkbys. It's not worthy of the development time it'd take to make an open-world game.

Lots of games fall into this trap, they give you a huge world to explore, but all it really does is make you take longer to get from point A to point B. Yeah maybe there's some points of interest. Something you can tick off your "100% completion" checklist. But you can't complete The Sims.
So what would a POI look like in TS5?
Well, if TS4 was open-world, then I think the Brindleton Bay lighthouse would be a POI.

But what does making that open-world really accomplish? Oh you have a new spot to take screenshots at, or maybe it's a unique woohoo spot, like the lighthouse is.

How does that improve the core gameplay, really?
What changes, by making it open-world?

Memories would be a good use of that gameplay. You arrive at the lighthouse, and your Sim thinks, "this is where I proposed to my wife"
You visit your Sims' child's school, and the Sim thinks, "I hope Parent-Teacher night goes okay, not like last year..."
You go to your Sims' workplace, and your Sim thinks, "I don't think I'll ever live down the day I had a Bladder Failure at work"
You visit the cinema, and your Sims react. They say, "Hey honey, remember when we had our first date here? Man that movie was awful!"

THAT

is what would make open world worth it for me.

Open world accomplishes ZERO loading screens. That's the main attraction of open world. I love traveling through it too. It's not just about reaching your destination, it's also about enjoying the ride and the scenery getting there. It adds to the immersion of gameplay.

It also allows you to do things like photography. You can take pictures of far off locations even if your sim is in the open world and not in a lot. Same thing with painting. If it was just closed world or small open neighborhoods, you can't really do that. In an open world, you can actually camp anywhere you want, not just in a lot. If you live in a houseboat, you can stop anywhere in an open world's ocean and just live there. If this was a closed world or small open neighborhood, you can't do that either - what is the point since it's such a small space?

Open world also makes zombie apocalypse and assassin gameplay fun because you can shoot your target from several lots away (or however much your rifle zooms, so even farther). So open world allows for more strategic solutions.

I don't like closed or small, limited open neighborhoods. They make you think "small".

It accomplishes one long loading screen every time instead of short loading screens when required.

That initial loading time has gotten shorter with the current computers - it's only a few minutes now. It will be even shorter with newer models to come. After that, there is no interruption to gameplay. Whereas with all the loading screens in a closed world gets pretty annoying and the time that you wait during loading screens adds up to be more than the initial loading time for TS3's open world if you have your sims go out often. This is why people who play closed worlds generally don't like their sims to leave their home lot. Which means the player isn't using the whole map - a waste of money.

But this wouldn't be a short loading screen in TS3, it'd be a long loading screen in The Sims 5.
You're right, computers are faster now, that's why load screens are so short in TS4.

Now imagine a game more graphically demanding than TS4, where everything needs to be loaded at the start of the game. That first load at the beginning of each TS5 session is gonna take longer than the start of a TS4 game, that's just common sense.

I'm not giving times here, because hardware will evolve by the time of TS5's launch. But the total load time would be the same; it's just a matter of loading everything, all at once, or loading a little bit, and loading the rest when you need it.

No, you're wrong. It won't be a longer loading screen at the begining in TS5, because TS5 will be 64-bit and will be able to use much larger capacities of RAM. TS3 was built in 32-bit and could only access 2gb RAM (3gb RAM if extended). Rendering will also be much faster and on the fly in TS5.

Also, TS3 graphics are more demanding than TS4 right now because it has higher polygon counts and has more detailed textures. As we both agree, the newer computers load them much faster now. It would be even more so in 64-bit TS5.

So 100% open world is feasible and a more attractive option. More gameplay is possible with it than with closed or partial open worlds. I don't know why TS4 simmers would want TS5 to go backward in technology like with TS4. That would surely be the death of the franchise. Besides, all the TS4 simmers said that they're just going to stick with TS4 and not move on to TS5. So leave TS5 to everyone else who won't play TS4.

EAxis has to remember that it has competition now. They can't be cheap and do the minimum anymore like with TS4. If they make TS5 closed or even partial when Paralives and Paradox Tectonic are going to be fully open world systems, they're going to lose again. Just like with Sim Cities getting their butt kicked by Cities:Skylines.

You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I'm saying load times would be longer than TS3.

I'm not. I'm saying they would be longer than a series of short load screens, loaded as needed. Which is true. "Long" is longer than "short". That's literally the definition.

I'm not comparing its load times to any existing game, except to say that the experience of one load at the start of the game would be a comparable experience. I'm comparing TS5 to itself.

How long is a piece of string?