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Interesting answers by SimGuru Grant
alanmichael1
Posts: 5,405 Member
There is a very well made preview of City Living on the German fansite Simtimes.de. I found particulary two answers by SimGuru Grant interesting. I have tried to translate them as carefully as possible.
First, he indicates that one year is now a normal development time for an EP:
"One year is in our view a good time to work with the existing people [on an expansion pack]. Sure, we can have a million people working on it, but that's simply not sensible because some things need their time. It takes some weeks to look at certain things in the game and to try and test it again and again. A year of development was therefore sensible in our view, and with our way of working."
Then he his asked why we can't build our own apartments. He says:
"We were aware that our design decision would frustrate the house builders. But we also knew that we can thus offer storytellers much more variety. We will try to give the builders more opportunities in the future again."
So there is hope for the future!
Here is the link to the complete article:
simtimes.de/specials/sims4-grossstadtleben-vorschau-interview/
First, he indicates that one year is now a normal development time for an EP:
"One year is in our view a good time to work with the existing people [on an expansion pack]. Sure, we can have a million people working on it, but that's simply not sensible because some things need their time. It takes some weeks to look at certain things in the game and to try and test it again and again. A year of development was therefore sensible in our view, and with our way of working."
Then he his asked why we can't build our own apartments. He says:
"We were aware that our design decision would frustrate the house builders. But we also knew that we can thus offer storytellers much more variety. We will try to give the builders more opportunities in the future again."
So there is hope for the future!
Here is the link to the complete article:
simtimes.de/specials/sims4-grossstadtleben-vorschau-interview/
26
Comments
Thanks for posting, that statement though makes me fume. Why wasn't it possible to satisfy both play styles?
Because they have to meet an EP budget and get it released. You can't actually just keep adding more stuff without delaying launch and charging more. Game development and design are full of such choices; you don't usually hear about what didn't make the cut. There's inevitably going to be someone whose wishlist isn't fulfilled. I might have* preferred elevator gameplay to karaoke and a singing skill, personally, but it's not only about me. (I was going to say "would have" but on second thought, realized that maybe getting the karaoke and singing skill will be more long-term value than elevator gameplay. Also just want to clarify that I'm picking my alternatives out of a hat: I don't actually know what would hit the cutting room floor for elevator gameplay.)
In this case, buildability might have meant that we ended up with Sims 3 style apartments again, which a lot of us were disappointed about for the gameplay. I know I certainly was, to the point that I mostly used them for Sims I didn't play a lot. We seem to get either buildable multi-household apartments where activity didn't fully carry over when you switch households (Sims 2) or single-played-household apartment buildings with buildability (Sims 3) or non-buildable multi-played-household apartments (Sims 4). It's my understanding (and I might be wrong) that technical issues underlie not being able to have buildability and fully developed multi-played-household gameplay for apartments.
Gotta say. The Toddlers answer adds more fuel to the hype-train engine, as far as I'm concerned. To me, it's saying "Oh hey, we give you stuff for free a lot NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK".
The developer could not answer this question. He said that The Sims 4 is a unique game that for almost two years so far is updated with new content through free updates. He also added that not every publisher operates the way The Sims Studio does, and unlike Maxis, other developers tend to abandon the game after a few months after release''
That's pretty clear to me that this answer mean they don't plan on putting toddlers in the game, I've heard many times that the mechanic of the game just doesn't make it possible, if they was able to make toddlers they wouldn't avoid the question that much and would probably just answer something like ''we don't know, maybe in the future, but nothing is certain''. I feel bad for people that play the game and buy packs in hope of one day getting toddlers.
That is a shame as back in the TS3 days I liked being spoilt with up to three EPs a year and good quality EPs at that!
We'd already been told it takes a year to make an EP and that there's one EP team. This isn't news. But unlike Sims 3, we have GPs that also add gameplay to the game. If you count only EPs, you're missing a lot of the story.
I'm okay with this 1 year 1 EP pace.
I understand that there is a budget limit for this EP.
But I just think they cut the wrong thing off in this case.
If you are living in an apartment, elevator is an important transportation tool which you will use EVERYDAY.(Unless you don't go out)
And you may meet the other people in this building accidentally by taking an elevator. Or being stuck in a broken elevator.
I think a functional elevator will definitely add more reality into this Life Simulation Game.
I don't agree that it's just the same thing as stairs.
I would love it
It's time for a lesson in PR.
Do you remember the Dine Out livestream? Users were concerned about musical chairs, and understandably so given it has the potential to tank a pack like Dine Out. So one user asked if musical chairs and the SimGuru answered something akin to:
"That's a problem we were very aware of and tried to keep in mind, and we feel we've done a pretty good job of trying to address the issue."
Two seconds later, in the game itself, a sim suffered from the musical chairs glitch and they were quick to get the camera off of them.
The thing about that statement is at no point did he say "Yes, we fixed it." He made a vague, broad statement that allows you, as a customer, to read between the lines and draw whatever conclusion you want to draw. That's exactly what people did, because of course people are hopeful it's fixed and the pack doesn't suck. Fast forward to now and we know it wasn't fixed at all. Thing is though that if you were to approach him and say "Hey, you said it was fixed!!" He'll look at you perplexed and say "no I didn't, refer to my quote," and sure enough he never said such a thing.
Exact same thing here. At no point did he answer or comment on it. In the pure, concrete context given, devoid of ANY interpretations whatsoever, he did not do that. I promise you that statement about the free content was purposefully made so that people like yourself would interpret it that way. I think his "true" answer and true intent is that he's trying to deflect and say EA does so much else for customers and to focus on that cause not every company would do live updates, and that's reasoning for why people shouldn't be so disappointed with toddlers. Promise you though that the statement was carefully crafted so that people such as yourself would get the wrong idea.
Okay but really, in two years, we've gotten two of those and did they really add a lot to the story? You can go to the Spa. You can go to or manage a restaurant. That's it. Those are pretty short chapters to the story and it looks like we'll get one of those per year as well. This is going to be a light iteration that looks poised to totally satisfy almost no one save maybe you Luthienrising and a few other people that seem to see roses and butterflies everywhere no matter what EA/Maxis puts out. I personally think as a company they'd want to attempt for a broader, fully satisfied market then what I see around here but oh well.
So uh....what happened to the 'Expansion Packs are more like multiple storylines, spread broadly but not necessarily deep. Again all playstyles should be covered.' description? These answers are just like...I can't even.
And camping ! We've gotten three so far and they have all been great at what they were aiming for in my mind (even if camping is a theme I was less interested than spa and restaurant, I think they did a good job with it). I like the more focused approach to GPs.
So two years in, we have 3 GPs and 3 EPs, I think it's a really good amount. If they can manage two GPs a year (while keeping the same quality), it would be perfect.
Ah that's not not fair - OR gives us the best skill in the game: herbalism, reminding me of alchemy in my beloved TS3 Supernatural. Also the "bad song singing" with the guitar is great (it came with OR, didn't it?).
Even so, I'd get past all of that if there were more immersion; less immersion breaking stuff. Me with this game: I'd get excited about doing something, and then immediately walk into immersion breakage that left me disappointed and feeling unfulfilled.
Me: oh I have to check that out, what if I could...
Game: nope, you can't do that.
Me: but what if I...
Game: nope, nothing here.
Me: oh wait, what if I could...
Game: let me stop you right there, you can't do that.
Me: Is there anything I can do?
Game: Sure, follow this shallow script, we decided this is how you play.
Me:...
And add on top of the repetitiveness, the one-year gap between repetitiveness, so if City Living really is as underwhelming as we think, you gotta wait til next year for another chance at a good expansion. And add onto THAT all the stuff from the interview, it's just insult to injury.
As I said, unless Sims 4 runs until 2021, it's currently set to get less expansion packs than ANY past iteration, Sims 1 included. I highly doubt they plan on running Sims 4 that long, and even if they do...? Even if you LOVE Sims 4, it's hard to imagine wanting it around for that long.
Oh the foods were horrible in Sims 1. In fact CC foods were the first CC I used in that game. Food is very important to me, it adds so much to the realism. It adds a lots of fun to my game, and many others have expressed this as well. In Sims 2 I had more CC food than any other CC.
I get that you really liked Sims 2 and you modded the heck out of it. I know, I really enjoyed your mods, they made my game, everything from the teleporter bush to the school mods, wouldn't play without them. But I think you are being more than a little unfair to Sims 4 simply because it is not like Sims 2. I loved Sims 2 in it's day, but I have no desire to have Sims 4 be like it. I like Sims 4 for the things it brings to the table to include the foods, semi open world, time moving on all lots, etc. I respect that everyone likes what they like, but that should go both ways instead of this constant bashing of Sims 4 because everyone assumes that what they want must apply to others.
Surely the longer it's around, the less money you'll spend on rehashed content? Are you really in that much of a hurry to restart The Sims for what would be the fourth time? This is one of the biggest gripes I have about the series in its entirety. It's an endless loop of rehashing. As we are seeing with complaints on the forums, tying new ideas with rehashed ones seems to be preventing the devs from developing packs further because they have to cater to those who want previous content *and* those who want new content all while, and this is an assumption, the budget for the game stays the same. I think having an iteration with a longer shelf life would alleviate some of this.
Oh I agree with you. There's plenty of games that could stand to just make a graphic style they're comfortable with on a fully-fleshed out game engine they're comfortable with, and then just ride that specific title forever, adding on new expansions and refining it for as long as people are willing to pay.
I do not think Sims 4 qualifies as such though, and if you were to ask me if I would prefer an endless Sims 4 to seeing a Sims 5...? I think they could do better in terms of potential, because they've given us every reason to believe Sims 4 is in some way limiting. By all means, if they work hard on it, ride out Sims 5 for 15 years or so. But this one...? No, please don't. Please don't stick with this one for any longer than 5 years.