Plenty of TS4 fans criticize the game all the time.
There is a difference between saying TS4 lacks X Y or Z and this can be improved, compared to "Death to Maxis, Down with EA, LGR is our savior, glory to TS3 and TS4 players are sheep."
Exaggeration of course but the issue is, after seeing how the same cycle of negativity and complaints happen with every generation, it's hard not to be bit desensitized. Especially since people on both sides are throwing ad hominem attacks at each other.
So in a way, I can see how some people want nothing to do with the forums. It honestly baffles me how toxic the forums can be sometimes, considering how this is a single player NON-COMPETITIVE game.
You keep saying this, but you're heavily exaggerating this. You pay no credit to how Sims 4's reception is particularly bad, how Sims 2 did not receive such negative reception, and how while Sims 3 had some critics, they were a clear minority. You're lazily claiming Sims 2, Sims 3 and Sims 4 all received the exact same treatment, and this absolutely isn't the case. Sims 2 never got bad treatment even remotely close to this, and to compare Sims 3's criticisms to Sims 4 is a gross exaggeration.
Even your example quote is disgusting. In your process of making an argument to try and criticize the critics, you strawman them and paint them as zealous sheep that worship LGR and view fans as inferior to them. The hypocrisy there is painful. Please tell me you can see that hypocrisy in retrospect.
Clans and Cliques.
They have been squabbling for years - it is organised and structured.
I don't get this either. Perhaps I'm naive, but I've not got a single friend nor foe on these forums, and I don't associate with anyone. I see any claims someone is being targeted or followed and I just view it as paranoid, and that goes for both fans and critics. Unless anyone can name names (and lol don't do it publicly) and outright confirm this is a thing, I see no reason and no benefit for such wild speculation. If anything, I think such wild accusations only add to the hysteria around here.
Except there WAS a huge wave of negativity when TS2 and TS3 were released and I specifically stated my quote was an exaggeration. Anyone who takes it at face value...well...all power and godspeed to them I guess.
You are absolutely rewriting history in my book. TS2 practically has no categories where it downgraded from TS1, save for difficulty (which many welcomed and preferred). TS3, I was one of the critics because I found the base game weak, and I was in such a minority that any topic I made discussing my disappointments was ignored with no supportive replies.
TS4 critics are also in the minority, just a very loud and vocal minority.
Two things:
1) Rule of thumb is that one critic represents 26 other silent critics.
2) A minority of critics is not neccesarily a good thing, as it could mean many have simply moved on and abandoned a product entirely.
Either way, there is value to criticism, and to liken all critics to having nothing to offer is...well, yeah, it's very very lazy.
I was responding to an earlier post implying TS4 fans try to put criticism down, which certainly happens but I do not strictly agree on this being an endemic problem. There is constructive criticism, and then there is simple negativity. I was just making a distinction (yes, with a hyperbole that again, should not be taken at face value) and made this explicitly clear in the SECOND line of my post. When there is a lot of negativity, interacting with the community gets tiresome, regardless if the criticism is valid.
To be completely honest, I was referring to the crappy state of the forums rather than the games.
I never even said anything remotely close to making comparisons between the games themselves. I enjoy the franchise as a whole but I'm becoming increasingly wary of the community. I can also recall from the TS3 days where there was a lot of bad opinions and complaints of the game. But anecdotal evidence just turns into "you said" vs "I said", and those debates often lead no where.
If you want to resort to ad hominem attacks and call me lazy or hypocritical, then go ahead. Sometimes I am guilty of posting knee jerk reactions and I cannot guarantee that literally everything I say is logically airtight or diplomatically sound. Sue me. But my point still stands.
Also, with your own logic, if minority of critics implies bad thing for TS4, why does it imply a good thing for TS3? Let's just assume your judgement of the forums is correct and criticism is indeed becoming more common. We can't even be sure how representative the forums are of the entire player base. That argument also goes nowhere, unless if you want to deal with a whole string of econometric issues such as sampling bias, omitted / extraneous variables, etc etc. The only thing we can really take from it is how pleasant / unpleasant the forums are.
I personally do enjoy the sims 4 and I am sorry you feel like you are being stalked and harassed on the forums. Also in my opinion I kinda doubt the sims 4 will be ending in 2 years...I get the feeling that it will last a lot longer than other sim series have lasted. You never though. I could be wrong and it does end in 2 years. I won't lie when I say I would be upset if it did end in 2 years and we didn't get what most other sims games got. I get some people would be sooooo happy its finally done but for the people that stuck with the sims 4 they would be so disappointed and let down if that happened. I just feel like they can't cram everything in the next 2 years.
To tell the truth. I will be as depressed when Sims 4 ends (if) as I was when The Sims, Sims2, Sims3 ended as I always thought that I hadn't finished the game yet. They all had merits and I still try to play them but revert to Sims4 again.
All I wanted was for that current game I was playing to be upgraded to 64bit, completely upgraded, etc., etc. I didn't know what any new game would be like. I ranted a lot at the basic Sims3 just because I could.
I don't really want it be over. I've been extremely critical of the game in the past but it's come on in leaps and bounds since 2014 and it's only getting better. It would be a shame to shoot it down now just as it's finding it's feet.
I was not going to comment on what I considered to be an adolescent's cry for attention - I am just so shocked to read that OP may be a grown man as suggested above! We all have our issues but this is really quite silly, as OPs greatest fear clearly is being ignored and not being "stalked" on this forum. And any other grown-ups offering emotional farewells in this thread, please kindly consider: If anything, this person is taking a break and it seems that it could only do him a world of good if he can follow through on that.
I personally do enjoy the sims 4 and I am sorry you feel like you are being stalked and harassed on the forums.
The OP is not being stalked and harassed. Actually, the opposite has been happening. Because so many posters in the TS4 forums have the OP on ignore, nobody responds to him anymore. So this isn't all about being stalked and harassed; it's about someone picking up their toys and going home. See, it's not as fun antagonizing people on the TS4 forums when everyone there stops taking the bait.
I don't think the negativity that surrounds the sims 4 was present when the sims 2 and 3 came out. Not even close to the same degree. Sims 3 did get some criticism from some fans but it was nothing like the sims 4 has had.
That is absolutely, 100% not true. There was not only an insane level of hatred against TS3, the negativity was much more toxic than what's happening now. If you supported TS3, you were dismissed as "not a real fan", a "newbie", an "EA shill" or just the type of mindless fanboy who would buy anything that EA would put out. If not insulted outright, you were just given a snarky response, like the time I said how excited I was about Pets and someone snarled at me, "What are you, 12?" Sometimes you were literally told off, like the time I was screamed at that I was a "nobody" and a "drama queen" just because I posted a meme pic. (This was so beyond the pale that the person who did this actually PM'ed me months later and apologized, one of the rare moments of decency on that forum.)
Year in and year out, there was the pro-TS2 clique constantly pitting it against TS3. TS3 was ridiculed as a completely bug-ridden mess, with TS2 being painted as a paragon of technical perfection. The TS3 sims were slammed as being robotic and pudding-faced compared to the TS2 sims, who were oh, so drop dead gorgeous and expressive and lifelike. CASt (yes, CASt, the thing everyone loves so much now), was put down as an excuse for EA to not "give us more content." SP packs were maligned as worthless junk because skinners were so much more talented than the creative team and their content could be had for free. The Store was maligned as yet another greedy enterprise by EA to nickel and dime us to death. The devs throughout were lambasted as so lazy, incompetent and stupid that modders had to do their work for them.
On top of that, there were always the constant obnoxious, "Let's boycott!" or "I'm going back to TS2!" At least today, when people are unhappy when a feature was missing, they just post a petition for what they want. But back in the TS3 days it was just, "I'm boycotting!" Pets didn't come out yet? "I'm boycotting!" Seasons came out instead of University? "I'm boycotting!"
People posted constant, "This franchise is dying," "TS3 is a total flop", and "I'm ready for TS4" threads when TS3 was more than a year away from ending.
The reason why I remember all of this is that this was literally what the TS3 forums were like day in, day out for years. They cleaned the old boards very well after archiving them but anyone who was there remembers. The forums today can be aggravating but they are still a picnic compared to the TS3 days. And there's none of the viciousness, either, where people would really drag things to a completely personal level and turn everything into a knock down, drag out fight.
I hope that by the time TS4 ends, it will be a fully developed concept with a lot of content. I'm in the school of thought that it will probably last longer than previous versions based on where it is now. I won't mind that at all if it is the case. I look forward to TS5 eventually but I'm not going to "count down the days" until it happens I don't know what my life will be like or what my computer specs will be then. I have a feeling that EA's goal is to make as much money as possible so they are going to see how much they can get out of this series before moving on. Abandoning it mid-way through just doesn't make financial sense. There are a lot of players who join on when the big expansions come out who probably haven't even joined this version of the game yet.
Anyway, the decision to leave a forum is a personal one and if the OP feels that it is right to do so then, G-dspeed (not sure if I'm allowed to spell that). I have vacated or taken breaks from other forums that weren't satisfying to me. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. That doesn't entitle them to complete agreement.
@king_of_simcity7 It's too bad you feel the need to leave but I do understand. This September the game will be three years old and they've added lots of new stuff but it's still much the same game. The same lack of creativity for builders, the disappointment of things like how apartments work, the same grinding game play, the ongoing bugs and glitches. I doubt that the things that haven't changed ever will.
I'm not around nearly as much because when I come here I see the same arguments, the same people promoting their arguments by stating their opinions as facts, the fans and people who do like it, the disappointed ......in fact it's a lot of the same stuff from the past 2 1/2 years. I've never thought of a "goodbye letter though because it always seems dramatic (and a lot of people end up returning). To me it just seems more suitable to just gradually fade away without even a whimper. It's the way a lot of fans have left....just slowly ebbing away instead of still hoping things will get better.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
A new thread from Sims 4 General Discussion was merged into this older one.
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
I don't think the negativity that surrounds the sims 4 was present when the sims 2 and 3 came out. Not even close to the same degree. Sims 3 did get some criticism from some fans but it was nothing like the sims 4 has had.
That is absolutely, 100% not true. There was not only an insane level of hatred against TS3, the negativity was much more toxic than what's happening now. If you supported TS3, you were dismissed as "not a real fan", a "newbie", an "EA shill" or just the type of mindless fanboy who would buy anything that EA would put out. If not insulted outright, you were just given a snarky response, like the time I said how excited I was about Pets and someone snarled at me, "What are you, 12?" Sometimes you were literally told off, like the time I was screamed at that I was a "nobody" and a "drama queen" just because I posted a meme pic. (This was so beyond the pale that the person who did this actually PM'ed me months later and apologized, one of the rare moments of decency on that forum.)
Year in and year out, there was the pro-TS2 clique constantly pitting it against TS3. TS3 was ridiculed as a completely bug-ridden mess, with TS2 being painted as a paragon of technical perfection. The TS3 sims were slammed as being robotic and pudding-faced compared to the TS2 sims, who were oh, so drop dead gorgeous and expressive and lifelike. CASt (yes, CASt, the thing everyone loves so much now), was put down as an excuse for EA to not "give us more content." SP packs were maligned as worthless junk because skinners were so much more talented than the creative team and their content could be had for free. The Store was maligned as yet another greedy enterprise by EA to nickel and dime us to death. The devs throughout were lambasted as so lazy, incompetent and plum that modders had to do their work for them.
On top of that, there were always the constant obnoxious, "Let's boycott!" or "I'm going back to TS2!" At least today, when people are unhappy when a feature was missing, they just post a petition for what they want. But back in the TS3 days it was just, "I'm boycotting!" Pets didn't come out yet? "I'm boycotting!" Seasons came out instead of University? "I'm boycotting!"
People posted constant, "This franchise is dying," "TS3 is a total flop", and "I'm ready for TS4" threads when TS3 was more than a year away from ending.
The reason why I remember all of this is that this was literally what the TS3 forums were like day in, day out for years. They cleaned the old boards very well after archiving them but anyone who was there remembers. The forums today can be aggravating but they are still a picnic compared to the TS3 days. And there's none of the viciousness, either, where people would really drag things to a completely personal level and turn everything into a knock down, drag out fight.
Wow I wasn't here during the sims 3 times but what you described is how it kinda is now with The sims 4 and The sims 3. Same thing will probably happen with the sims 5.
Clearly the policy is that each user gets a maximum of one "farewell to the forum" threads. Which is plenty.
Well, I have grassed to Maxis on this.
This should be a non-event.
In a million years, I would never have predicted this kind of thread-merge.
You're making a mountain out of nothing. Not even a molehill. OP has a long and storied history of this sort of behavior. The moderators simply merged this latest episode, which is well within their rights. Nothing was locked. Nothing was deleted. Grab a glass of milk and chill.
Clearly the policy is that each user gets a maximum of one "farewell to the forum" threads. Which is plenty.
Well, I have grassed to Maxis on this.
This should be a non-event.
In a million years, I would never have predicted this kind of thread-merge.
You're making a mountain out of nothing. Not even a molehill. OP has a long and storied history of this sort of behavior. The moderators simply merged this latest episode, which is well within their rights. Nothing was locked. Nothing was deleted. Grab a glass of milk and chill.
Too late - I have already grassed.
We can't have this type of thread merged with one that has been dug up from 2 years ago and then bolted together.
Clearly the policy is that each user gets a maximum of one "farewell to the forum" threads. Which is plenty.
Well, I have grassed to Maxis on this.
This should be a non-event.
In a million years, I would never have predicted this kind of thread-merge.
You're making a mountain out of nothing. Not even a molehill. OP has a long and storied history of this sort of behavior. The moderators simply merged this latest episode, which is well within their rights. Nothing was locked. Nothing was deleted. Grab a glass of milk and chill.
Too late - I have already grassed.
We can't have this type of thread merged with one that has been dug up from 2 years ago and then bolted together.
I have queried the right for this to be done.
Okay. Best of luck with your investigation Lt. Columbo.
Comments
You are absolutely rewriting history in my book. TS2 practically has no categories where it downgraded from TS1, save for difficulty (which many welcomed and preferred). TS3, I was one of the critics because I found the base game weak, and I was in such a minority that any topic I made discussing my disappointments was ignored with no supportive replies.
Two things:
1) Rule of thumb is that one critic represents 26 other silent critics.
2) A minority of critics is not neccesarily a good thing, as it could mean many have simply moved on and abandoned a product entirely.
Either way, there is value to criticism, and to liken all critics to having nothing to offer is...well, yeah, it's very very lazy.
I was responding to an earlier post implying TS4 fans try to put criticism down, which certainly happens but I do not strictly agree on this being an endemic problem. There is constructive criticism, and then there is simple negativity. I was just making a distinction (yes, with a hyperbole that again, should not be taken at face value) and made this explicitly clear in the SECOND line of my post. When there is a lot of negativity, interacting with the community gets tiresome, regardless if the criticism is valid.
To be completely honest, I was referring to the crappy state of the forums rather than the games.
I never even said anything remotely close to making comparisons between the games themselves. I enjoy the franchise as a whole but I'm becoming increasingly wary of the community. I can also recall from the TS3 days where there was a lot of bad opinions and complaints of the game. But anecdotal evidence just turns into "you said" vs "I said", and those debates often lead no where.
If you want to resort to ad hominem attacks and call me lazy or hypocritical, then go ahead. Sometimes I am guilty of posting knee jerk reactions and I cannot guarantee that literally everything I say is logically airtight or diplomatically sound. Sue me. But my point still stands.
Also, with your own logic, if minority of critics implies bad thing for TS4, why does it imply a good thing for TS3? Let's just assume your judgement of the forums is correct and criticism is indeed becoming more common. We can't even be sure how representative the forums are of the entire player base. That argument also goes nowhere, unless if you want to deal with a whole string of econometric issues such as sampling bias, omitted / extraneous variables, etc etc. The only thing we can really take from it is how pleasant / unpleasant the forums are.
All I wanted was for that current game I was playing to be upgraded to 64bit, completely upgraded, etc., etc. I didn't know what any new game would be like. I ranted a lot at the basic Sims3 just because I could.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/956513/netz-a-porter-outfits-ready-to-wear-for-your-sims-no-cc-required
Twitter: NetzspannungTS
we all try ...
The OP is not being stalked and harassed. Actually, the opposite has been happening. Because so many posters in the TS4 forums have the OP on ignore, nobody responds to him anymore. So this isn't all about being stalked and harassed; it's about someone picking up their toys and going home. See, it's not as fun antagonizing people on the TS4 forums when everyone there stops taking the bait.
That is absolutely, 100% not true. There was not only an insane level of hatred against TS3, the negativity was much more toxic than what's happening now. If you supported TS3, you were dismissed as "not a real fan", a "newbie", an "EA shill" or just the type of mindless fanboy who would buy anything that EA would put out. If not insulted outright, you were just given a snarky response, like the time I said how excited I was about Pets and someone snarled at me, "What are you, 12?" Sometimes you were literally told off, like the time I was screamed at that I was a "nobody" and a "drama queen" just because I posted a meme pic. (This was so beyond the pale that the person who did this actually PM'ed me months later and apologized, one of the rare moments of decency on that forum.)
Year in and year out, there was the pro-TS2 clique constantly pitting it against TS3. TS3 was ridiculed as a completely bug-ridden mess, with TS2 being painted as a paragon of technical perfection. The TS3 sims were slammed as being robotic and pudding-faced compared to the TS2 sims, who were oh, so drop dead gorgeous and expressive and lifelike. CASt (yes, CASt, the thing everyone loves so much now), was put down as an excuse for EA to not "give us more content." SP packs were maligned as worthless junk because skinners were so much more talented than the creative team and their content could be had for free. The Store was maligned as yet another greedy enterprise by EA to nickel and dime us to death. The devs throughout were lambasted as so lazy, incompetent and stupid that modders had to do their work for them.
On top of that, there were always the constant obnoxious, "Let's boycott!" or "I'm going back to TS2!" At least today, when people are unhappy when a feature was missing, they just post a petition for what they want. But back in the TS3 days it was just, "I'm boycotting!" Pets didn't come out yet? "I'm boycotting!" Seasons came out instead of University? "I'm boycotting!"
People posted constant, "This franchise is dying," "TS3 is a total flop", and "I'm ready for TS4" threads when TS3 was more than a year away from ending.
The reason why I remember all of this is that this was literally what the TS3 forums were like day in, day out for years. They cleaned the old boards very well after archiving them but anyone who was there remembers. The forums today can be aggravating but they are still a picnic compared to the TS3 days. And there's none of the viciousness, either, where people would really drag things to a completely personal level and turn everything into a knock down, drag out fight.
This thread is now dated March 2015 - it is not the same thread that I commented in.
This could suggest that site administration/moderation is on 'the take' - you can't merge 2 threads that are 2 years apart by accident.
I suggest this gets flagged up as it would explain certain odditites regarding the administration.
Anyway, the decision to leave a forum is a personal one and if the OP feels that it is right to do so then, G-dspeed (not sure if I'm allowed to spell that). I have vacated or taken breaks from other forums that weren't satisfying to me. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. That doesn't entitle them to complete agreement.
I'm not around nearly as much because when I come here I see the same arguments, the same people promoting their arguments by stating their opinions as facts, the fans and people who do like it, the disappointed ......in fact it's a lot of the same stuff from the past 2 1/2 years. I've never thought of a "goodbye letter though because it always seems dramatic (and a lot of people end up returning). To me it just seems more suitable to just gradually fade away without even a whimper. It's the way a lot of fans have left....just slowly ebbing away instead of still hoping things will get better.
A new thread from Sims 4 General Discussion was merged into this older one.
^The question of the day.
Whoever merged it had to dig back 2 years.
Wow I wasn't here during the sims 3 times but what you described is how it kinda is now with The sims 4 and The sims 3. Same thing will probably happen with the sims 5.
Clearly the policy is that each user gets a maximum of one "farewell to the forum" threads. Which is plenty.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/956513/netz-a-porter-outfits-ready-to-wear-for-your-sims-no-cc-required
Twitter: NetzspannungTS
we all try ...
Well, I have grassed to Maxis on this.
This should be a non-event.
In a million years, I would never have predicted this kind of thread-merge.
You're making a mountain out of nothing. Not even a molehill. OP has a long and storied history of this sort of behavior. The moderators simply merged this latest episode, which is well within their rights. Nothing was locked. Nothing was deleted. Grab a glass of milk and chill.
We can't have this type of thread merged with one that has been dug up from 2 years ago and then bolted together.
I have queried the right for this to be done.
Okay. Best of luck with your investigation Lt. Columbo.
He started the thread two years ago, but instead of making a new one, he just started it back up on page 3. Same person, 2nd farewell.