Anyone wanna share some popcorn and watch the Sims 4 train wreck?

[Bokishi]

Yeah I remember like the Sims 3 island paradise world had massive amounts of bad lag, because certain sims would get stuck some place, who knows where.

 

If you think about the loading they brought back, I would choose that since it's far more efficient and faster than Sims 3 style, which was having your sim jump into some poorly rendered car, and driving through some sparsely detailed n64 looking world (even on max gfx), to get to some destination that pop loads right before your eyes anyway

 

In Sims 4 when you load up the gym, every treadmill is taken. When you load up the bar, every seat is taken. Things are more populated. Not so much in Sims 3, when all the sims are spread out in that big open world

[Walsingham]

 

What absolutely blows my mind is that people are still buying games like the Sims 4 on day one. EA has a horrendous reputation. They've gutted customers for money, they've made buggy releases, they've been behind train wrecks like Sim City, and the previews for sims 4...? I'm by no means a sims fanatic. I thought the sims 3 was pretty meh and I recall a rather wonderful encounter on the Sims 3 forum where a disabled guy humbly requested disabled sims (specifically ones in wheelchairs) be included in the Sims 4 because he - like many people - would like to play his sim self but cant because wheelchairs aren't an option. To my disgust, the MAJORITY of the community reacted by saying disabled sims would be boring to play cause they'd be so worthless or that disabled people are disgusting and they don't want to see bad parts of life included in their game they play to escape. Myself wearing a prosthesis and sympathizing with the guy wanting to make himself, I basically told those people to **** off and die in a fire along with only two other women who stood up for him against an overwhelming majority calling disabled sims a terrible idea with very offensive arguments. When EA swept through and calmed the thread down, they decided to simply temp ban the minority opinion, aka myself and the three others. Well, I found out their ban system at the time relied on cookies, deleted my cookies and spent several hours spamming their forums and calling them **** suckers. Been banned from all EA services and networks ever since. Aside from that? As stated I was already disappointed with the Sims 3 for multiple reasons.

 

 

WTF?

 

I'm not with you on pricing, because market capitalist guy. But being so ****ing greedy that they take OUT disabled sims to avoid 'offending' halfwits?

 

Satan Makes Room For Parents Who Complained About Disabled TV Presenter

Edited September 5, 2014 by Walsingham

[Guest Slinky]

Sims 5 - The Reich. Now with only perfect immortal adult aryans.

 

Even though The Sims isn't really my cup of tea (would be with certain changes), I really can't think a game which would benefit more by having a lot of diversity in population. In most games it would smell like the devs are making some statement which doesn't really fit in the game, but Sims should be full of different kinds of people. Would make the neighborhood much more interesting to me.

 

 

 

Wheelchair DLC - 5$

 

 

[Longknife]

 

 

What absolutely blows my mind is that people are still buying games like the Sims 4 on day one. EA has a horrendous reputation. They've gutted customers for money, they've made buggy releases, they've been behind train wrecks like Sim City, and the previews for sims 4...? I'm by no means a sims fanatic. I thought the sims 3 was pretty meh and I recall a rather wonderful encounter on the Sims 3 forum where a disabled guy humbly requested disabled sims (specifically ones in wheelchairs) be included in the Sims 4 because he - like many people - would like to play his sim self but cant because wheelchairs aren't an option. To my disgust, the MAJORITY of the community reacted by saying disabled sims would be boring to play cause they'd be so worthless or that disabled people are disgusting and they don't want to see bad parts of life included in their game they play to escape. Myself wearing a prosthesis and sympathizing with the guy wanting to make himself, I basically told those people to **** off and die in a fire along with only two other women who stood up for him against an overwhelming majority calling disabled sims a terrible idea with very offensive arguments. When EA swept through and calmed the thread down, they decided to simply temp ban the minority opinion, aka myself and the three others. Well, I found out their ban system at the time relied on cookies, deleted my cookies and spent several hours spamming their forums and calling them **** suckers. Been banned from all EA services and networks ever since. Aside from that? As stated I was already disappointed with the Sims 3 for multiple reasons.

 

 

WTF?

 

I'm not with you on pricing, because market capitalist guy. But being so ****ing greedy that they take OUT disabled sims to avoid 'offending' halfwits?

 

Satan Makes Room For Parents Who Complained About Disabled TV Presenter

 

 

 

Just to clarify, disabled sims never existed nor do I think EA ever considered them.

 

 

What I said was that when there was a heated discussion on EA's forums between disabled customers and supporters vs. insensitive half-wits, EA took the easy way out and banned the minority vocal opinion, which just so happened to be the disabled people requesting disabled sims. The "please add disabled sims" camp did nothing wrong and merely requested to see disabled Sims in a future Sims title, which the majority of the forum reacted to with disapproval by saying "why would anyone want to play a worthless and depressing sim that takes 5 hours just to make it to the toilet seat." I was there, I promise you I was the only one from the few disabled sims supporters who was using swear words and threatening to break some necks; the others were all very polite and patient (though I fear that's because some of them felt truly insulted or upset... :C ), so the ban was unwarranted. It was merely "conflict eh? Just get rid of the smallest group."

 

 

In a nutshell, EA doesn't give a damn about individual customers because they know they've got more than enough to spare, nor do they give a damn about any sort of principle or morality and would apparently gladly support a vocal majority with terrible morals if it means more profit. ;P

Edited September 5, 2014 by Longknife

[Gizmo]

EA is pretty much preventing me from even trying DA:I, since I don't want their Origin game portal installed, so I have a bone to pick with them right there...

EA earned my enmity when they assimilated Bullfrog Software, and took them off DK3 and put them to work on a Harry Potter game.

 

(And then they gobbled up Westwood Studios.)

[Hurlshort]

 

EA is pretty much preventing me from even trying DA:I, since I don't want their Origin game portal installed, so I have a bone to pick with them right there...

EA earned my enmity when they assimilated Bullfrog Software, and took them off DK3 and put them to work on a Harry Potter game.

 

(And then they gobbled up Westwood Studios.)

 

 

I doubt you can find many current EA employees that were even around for that, it was like 20 years ago.

[Gizmo]

 

 

EA is pretty much preventing me from even trying DA:I, since I don't want their Origin game portal installed, so I have a bone to pick with them right there...

EA earned my enmity when they assimilated Bullfrog Software, and took them off DK3 and put them to work on a Harry Potter game.

 

(And then they gobbled up Westwood Studios.)

 

 

I doubt you can find many current EA employees that were even around for that, it was like 20 years ago.

 

Indeed.

[Longknife]

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Sims-5-Won-t-Happen-Sims-4-Doesn-t-Sell-Says-Producer-67162.html

 

GG

[Lexx]

Heh, that almost sounds like a threat to the fans.

[Longknife]

Heh, that almost sounds like a threat to the fans.

That's exactly how I interpret it.

 

Check different communities. Most gamers call it a rip-off, journalists are split between "amazing 10/10 go buy four copies" and "wow this is balls," but the sims 4 forums? The sim fanatics themselves? They're....pretty blind to it all. Their forums are currently laced with that attitude of "anyone who criticizes the game needs to stfu and gtfo," so as far as this game being a wake up call to them?

 

Nope. :/ My hopes of seeing some sort of reaction in the market are kinda dead, cause even with all the backlash and scathing comments, their fan base is large enough to stay afloat.

 

And yes, sadly I interpret that little comment as marketing. I can actually picture someone hearing that and saying "I'LL TAKE EIGHT" out of fear of never seeing a Sims 5.

 

But yeah, I'm pretty disappointed. I expected it to fail and it pretty much did for the most part (anyone "on the fence" about the sims and not totally loyal to it that I know of isn't buying or is requesting a refund), but the fans are total zealots who'll hold this series up anyways. :c. Even if it means buying expansion packs just to get dishwashers or firefighters...

[Lexx]

On the other side, I was reading that Sims 3 had some really bad performance, even without all the million DLCs. Also some folks argued that it's good for the Sims to get back to a more blank state again, especially since the last DLCs apparently had become some super crazy / wacky stuff. Sims 4 now is more about the sims and their emotions (the game is apparently pretty good in this area) and less about whatever you did in that old DLCs.

 

I personally can't judge it of course. The last Sims game I played was Sims 1 and I've build rooms where I deleted the doors or pools where I deleted the ladders. Then I watched them die and respawn as ghosts at 12 in the night. Now please don't judge me.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Lexx

[Longknife]

On the other side, I was reading that Sims 3 had some really bad performance, even without all the million DLCs. Also some folks argued that it's good for the Sims to get back to a more blank state again, especially since the last DLCs apparently had become some super crazy / wacky stuff. Sims 4 now is more about the sims and their emotions (the game is apparently pretty good in this area) and less about whatever you did in that old DLCs.

 

I personally can't judge it of course. The last Sims game I played was Sims 1 and I've build rooms where I deleted the doors or pools where I deleted the ladders. Then I watched them die and respawn as ghosts at 12 in the night. Now please don't judge me.

 

 

This is the issue:

 

Sims 1 to Sims 2, what improvements did we see?

 

Aspirations, aging and various life stages, the introduction of alternative lifeforms (plant sims, aliens), cars, being able to edit and create your own town...All kinds of stuff. No one will argue Sims 1 to Sims 2 was nothing but an improvement upon existing features.

 

 

Sims 2 to Sims 3, what improvements did we see?

 

Personalities got a revamp, Story progression and the ability to age the neighborhood simultaneously, Create-a-Style, and the town became interconnected. Mind you, Sims 3 was not perfect. If you want my opinion, Sims 2 is hands down the most flawless title in the series as it offered only improvements while having a nice balance of challenge vs. freedom.

   Sims 3 was a "sidegrade" in many ways, for example while the town became interconnected, that came at the cost of being able to edit a town as extensively as you could in Sims 2. In the Sims 2, only very few buildings required a good degree of know-how to actually get working on your own, whereas Sims 3 had many presets that were rather difficult for a user to replace themselves. Likewise I personally am very quick to criticize the relative ease of Sims 3. They say this was done to give you more time to live the Sim's life and do little things like visit the park, but me? I'm productive in a game and don't see much point in bothering to visit the park to play chess when I can do it at home, so it just made it easier for me. Some people love this though as it makes the game more relaxed.

  And yes, Sims 3 was highly ambitious and had ridiculous bugs. The bugs are one of the reasons I'm amazed no one's called EA out on their **** yet in regards to this series. You can play the game and search for various bugs on google and often the solution is "download Nraas." Excuse me EA, but why is third-party software and user-made mods the only way to make your game functional? That's ridiculous. Another prime example: Island paradise. That expansion is basically non-functional unless you play the game in the new neighborhood it comes with, as many of the functions tied into it are related to the water and specific preset lots (yep here we go again with lack of world customization) that only appear there. The problem? That neighborhood is - by far - THE biggest lag generator in the game. They placed a lot and a family that's notorious for getting stuck, causing game freezes and slow-down as the game attempts to reroute the stuck sim. WITHOUT third-party fixes, this neighborhood is basically unplayable, making the entire expansion unplayable, and yet there's no class action lawsuit? Wow. This is mind-blowing, this is fascinating.

 

  But I digress: Did the Sims 3 improve from the Sims 2?

 

Even if you hate it and it's not the game for you, you can AT LEAST admit EA did work. You can AT LEAST acknowledge that an effort was made and that there are improvements geared towards another target audience than you. I hate the decreased difficulty of the Sims 3, but some people enjoy this because they DO want to spend days wasted at the park with their sims. Likewise, while I would never have bought the full version and all expansions unless I found it used and at a steal-of-a-price (we're talkingt over $1000 if you buy that crap from EA), nor would I say the complete game is worth the pricetag, it DOES stand up on it's own two feet to challenge the Sims 2 once completed. It provides so much sheer content that the decreased difficulty and other issues I have with it start to diminish. And while yes I'd love to scream at EA for never fixing the loads of bugs within the game, at least there are fixes existing.

  Likewise, base-game Sims 2 vs. base-game Sims 3....? Personally I'd choose 2, but I wouldn't piss and moan and cry bloody murder if someone stuck me with 3 instead. Both are "satisfactory" at least.

 

 

 

 

Now what improvements did we see from Sims 3 to Sims 4?

 

 

Shut out all the little comments about how "well that's cause Sims 3 has expansions and Sims 4 doesn't" and let's just compare the base games. The lists of improvements I made for Sims 2 and Sims 3 referred to their base game versions and didn't include expansion add-ons, so let's compare what the base game of Sims 4 improved upon the base game of Sims 3.

 

 

.....What the **** did it improve? Honestly, the only things that come to mind are the general UI (refering to everything from designing sims to designing houses being more intuitive) and "moodlets" from the Sims 3 became far more animated and detailed. A +15 moodlet boost for 4 hours from brushing your teeth in Sims 3 became the Sim's emotion changing to "Confident" and allowing them to interact with other sims better or learn some skills faster instead of just "+15 more happiness."

 

I'm sorry, but how the **** does this sell a game?

 

Sims 2 added a metric ****ton onto an already successful game. Sims 3, while ambitious and a little bit more niche in design, added a lot of new features aswell and no one can deny that there's a visible effort there.

 

But better UI does not sell a game.

Better moodlets do not sell a game.

 

In Sims 3 we lost the ability to customize towns as extensively as in Sims 2, but it was a trade-off. Yes, you may have hated that trade and you have every right to, but you cannot deny they did give you something in return (whether you wanted it or not). Where the **** is the trade-off with Sims 4? We lost so much, from the infamous toddlers and swimming pools to the slow burn that is "where the hell is the fire department and where do I buy a dishwasher?" There's no worthwhile improvement that makes up for everything that was lost.

 

And sure enough, if you read news stories on the subject matter, you'll know why. Laid off employees at EA had been warning as far back as January that the Sims 4 was being incredibly mismanaged and becoming a victim of circumstance, and other stories stated the game was being designed on an engine geared towards online gameplay, NOT one for this kind of gameplay and definitely not one that could even think to hold a candle to all the stuff Sims 3 processed.

 

 

I would not be complaining if some elements from Sims 3 did not return solely on the grounds that the devs respectfully said "sorry, we were waaaaaay too ambitious with that game, and we need to regress in scope a tad to prevent the extent of bugs and stability issues Sims 3 had." I don't think anyone would mind losing the open world if that were neccesary to stomp bugs, nor do I think they'd mind story progression.....as long as we're getting something in return.

  But that's not what happened. On the contrary, Sims 4 even lost features that existed in Sims 2. Create-A-Style didn't seem like a Sims 3 feature that needed to die for the sake of stability either. Or ffs, even a handful of things that existed since Sims 1 are gone. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not.

 

 

WHY IN THE HELL do Sims magically teleport to work instead of driving or taking a carpool? You could argue this is no big deal and I'd be inclined to agree to some extent, but I'm more focused on the fact that I think this truly highlights the limitations of the engine this game was played on. You cannot tell me that programming in a carpool or cars is this huge undertaking and problem starter, so why are my Sims magically teleporting away? I highly suspect this is a sign for just HOW BAD this engine is for this kind of game.

 

 

 

So what's the problem? EA has been polishing a turd for over a year and never thought to say "I'm sorry everyone, I wasted a lot of time polishing a turd thinking I could fix it up for you, but it's just not working so now I need to go back and start nearly from scratch and the game will be delayed." No, they didn't do that. They tried to market and sell that polished turd.

 

And the worst part of it...? They're succeeding.

 

 

 

 

Also some folks argued that it's good for the Sims to get back to a more blank state again, especially since the last DLCs apparently had become some super crazy / wacky stuff. Sims 4 now is more about the sims and their emotions (the game is apparently pretty good in this area) and less about whatever you did in that old DLCs.

 

 

Just a side-note I'm editing in cause I think this is somewhat irrelevant to the big picture...

 

Sims 4 also cut out "normal" jobs. You cannot be an office drone, you cannot be a doctor, you cannot be a cop. You can be a stand-up comedian, you can be an Astronaut, you can be a Video Game Journalist. So that kinda kills the "back to realism" argument in one fell swoop...

 

I get it, I like realism too. I don't like little add-ons like Supernatural or Into the Future (the Time-travel DLC you heard about). The best expansions I've seen from the Sims (aside from "commonplace" ones that I feel would be unfair to include in this as they feel so essential, such as Late Night and Seasons) would have to be Open For Business and Ambitions, imo. So I'm with people who say they want realism.

 

But this isn't it. This is a pretty little claim to hide behind while arguing Sims 4 isn't a rip-off. *****SPOILER ALERT**** It is.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Longknife

[Guest Slinky]

I personally can't judge it of course. The last Sims game I played was Sims 1 and I've build rooms where I deleted the doors or pools where I deleted the ladders. Then I watched them die and respawn as ghosts at 12 in the night. Now please don't judge me.

 

My favorite in Sims 2 was to keep calling the maid to come to my house and sexually harass her every time she came there.

 

Those who want to live respectable lives, grow families and stuff in Sims are welcome to it, but to me they are neighbors from hell simulators where you get to be the rotten bastard nobody wants to be their neighbor

[exodiark]

Rather ****ty entry in the Sims series, thankfully I didn't buy it.
- I miss world exploration the most from Sims 3 (especially on vacation and Island Paradise), and I doubt they'll be back in Sims 4.
- Jobs are way over the top.
- No pools, dishwasher, lameeeee. I don't think there are thieves either, no security alarm for them.
- Dodgy AI. I made a friend and she starts knocking on my door every single day.
 

On positive note...

- Expressive emotion and cartoony graphics is a nice mix though, preventing uncanny valley.
- Build Mode is much more flexible this time, I can have roof frieze with flat roof, which I grow grass on it.
- CAS is much more intuitive and definitely easier to use.
- More multitasking is nice, I can blow a kiss, while eating steak.

[Longknife]

Rather ****ty entry in the Sims series, thankfully I didn't buy it.

- I miss world exploration the most from Sims 3 (especially on vacation and Island Paradise), and I doubt they'll be back in Sims 4.

- Jobs are way over the top.

- No pools, dishwasher, lameeeee. I don't think there are thieves either, no security alarm for them.

- Dodgy AI. I made a friend and she starts knocking on my door every single day.

 

On positive note...

- Expressive emotion and cartoony graphics is a nice mix though, preventing uncanny valley.

- Build Mode is much more flexible this time, I can have roof frieze with flat roof, which I grow grass on it.

- CAS is much more intuitive and definitely easier to use.

- More multitasking is nice, I can blow a kiss, while eating steak.

 

 

You got it as a gift I assume?

 

One thing I'm curious about cause it's not really something I can deduce from watching a playthrough:

 

How are the emotions? Like what I mean is, how similar are they to moodlets from the Sims 3, how much influence does a Sim's personality have on their mood swings, and how annoying/repetitive/dull do they get?

 

  I watched a playthrough and thought:

 

-Holy balls those little jingles for a mood change get REALLY old.

-Can't tell if personality effects mood in meaningful ways

-Can't tell if the player would consider these a huge bonus or if it's just another "meh" feature that ends up largely ignored after the flair wears off.

-Can't tell if multitasking is "functional." Often it seemed like a multitasking sim would pause and juggle the two actions rather than performing both simultaneously, AKA a sim that needs to eat fast would be better off not chatting while doing so cause it'll slow him down.

[exodiark]

No, I played the game on my friend's laptop. Poor sucker, bless her   
The performance gain from the Sims 3 is no joke though, it can run 60fps from her rather low-end laptop.

Mood system is a bit weird, but I'll try to explain my experience.
So your Sims have mood, and moodlets. The sum of moodlets will determine what mood your Sims have.

Every moodlets have values. Some moodlets have +1 value, some have +3, etc. For example, you take a bath in a very expensive bathtub, you'll get a "happy+2" because the water jet is amazingly comfortable. If there's no other opposing moodlet type, your sim will have "happy" mood.

Some moodlets are opposed to each other, for example, uncomfortable moodlet and happy moodlet. The moodlet with the highest value will determine your Sim overall mood. If your Sim have happy+2 and Uncomfortable+3, their overall mood will be "uncomfortable"

Some moodlets can boost other moodlets. Happy moodlets can boost "positive" moodlets. So if your Sims have +3 Happy, and they get Flirty +1, it will become Flirty + 4, and their overall mood will be "Flirty." If the boost is high enough, your Sims can have more intense moods, like "Very happy", or "very flirty", or "Very focused", etc.
I think there's priority for these moodlets if they have same values, being happy is definitely the lowest, since it's a booster moodlets. I think being energized+1 will override being flirty+1, but I didn't play enough to test it.

Your mood can influence success of your actions. For example, being very flirty will make you the king of the bed, being very inspired will enable you to practice writing faster, etc.
 

Some traits can influence mood, for example, if your Sim has active trait, they will get random energized moodlet occasionally, and will lead to "energized" mood. If they have insane trait, they will get random moods every morning, etc.

I overall don't have a strong opinion on new mood system. Well, maybe, the jingle is rather annoying at first, but it kinda grow on me, maybe I just like soft piano ringtones. But as a whole, I think it's a workable gameplay mechanics, could be refined in next expansions.

About multitasking, yeah most of them are juggling between two actions. But some, like running on treadmill while talking can occur simultaneously. It's a bit slow, but Sim interactions in restaurants, gyms, or bars is more natural this way.

[PrimeHydra]

Wow, I'm so glad I don't work for EA...

[HoonDing]

It's okay, as long as you're at the top.