@JoAnne65 I agree with you on all of that. I never bought the telemetry argument either. And, with all due respect to the devs and everyone working on new content, I somehow don't believe that if everyone had said "oh alright, who cares about toddlers anyway" that they'd be in the game today. Why add a feature no one's asking for anyway, 2 and a bit years later? Also, how long are these games usually in development before they release? 3-4 years? I just have a hard time buying toddlers take up 1/2 or 2/3 of the time they need to develop an entire base game. I'm really happy they're in the game now, but let's just say, this series did start off on the wrong foot for many people. There's no denying that. I'm just glad they're fixing it, but I don't think they should do it again next time ^^
I didn't think that they ever would release toddlers, pets or seasons because it was obviously that they didn't plan TS4 to be similar to the previous games and because it was obvious that they could easily have released toddlers at least 18 months ago if they had wanted to. So in many months they didn't plan to release toddlers at all after they had dropped them for the basegame.
But something happened a few months ago when they suddenly began to work on toddlers again. The only explanation I can imagine is that EA's marketing department didn't like neither the sales numbers nor the continued hype about toddlers. So EA must have told them to resume their work on toddlers but to be silent about it. Most likely because EA's marketing department hadn't decided yet how toddlers should be released. Should they be released as a GP, a part of an EP or for free?
Finally the marketing department must have decided to release them for free because a toddler GP wasn't likely to sell too well anyway and because a releasement that way would have meant that all future expansions would have to be made in a way where they could work correctly whether the toddler GP was installed or not. By releasing toddlers for free they could avoid that and assume that everybody not had the toddler update installed. The effect on future sales numbers for other expansions would likely also be bigger if toddlers were released for free. So releasing toddlers for free would likely be worth it.
But now this raises new questions. Has EA really changed the original plans about TS4 being a different Sims game with easier and happier gameplay and with less focus on raising kids? Has the sales numbers really been so disappointing that EA has given up and also changed the plans for the future expansions such that they again will be more traditional EPs such as Seasons, Pets, University and Supernaturals? Or will EA still want them to be new GPs and EPs more suited to partying, vacations and similar things? I am not sure anymore.
Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
Why dance around us in the first place, what are we, infantile? Why dodge, we're your customers fcol. Don't dodge on me or I'll dodge on you, which is in fact what happened. Or do you think it's a coincidence all of a sudden everybody has started playing Sims 4 again? Nobody can deny anymore a missing life stage was a huge deal for many players. For two years family players have been ridiculed on these forums ("but what exactly do you mean by family play, that's so different for everyone, I, I LOVE family play in Sims 4, it's perfect, so now please stop raining on my parade and quit mentioning the t-word ever again because I'll keep entering your pathetic topics with snarky gifs and comments and spoil your discussions").
I've never believed this telemetry thing, because not only have I played the game myself, I've also followed I don't know how many stories of other people and there were always toddlers in it and they were always played with. The stage doesn't last very long though, because in real life the stage doesn't last long either, compared to the rest of your life. Didn't see many elders in those stories (which doesn't mean they don't matter but they could be much better, just like the toddlers). I simply don't buy this telemetry showed less player activity around toddlers than around elders.
"So you’re satisfied that not having toddlers was the right choice?" was an obvious question and an open question. I'm glad someone finally asked because EA couldn't be moved to say anything about it using none leading questions. The answer: "So absolutely, I feel like it’s the best decision for the game to date." Yeah, buzzzz, is the wrong answer mrs. Franklin, it was never a good decision. Not back then and not two years later. If you develop a Sims game, don't cut out the sims. By saying "hahaha you know, our fans ask for a lot of things" as if we're a group of whining, never content people. This was a life stage fcol, not just anything. "We also have telemetry to tell us what people are actually playing with and using", 'actually', doesn't that sound awfully "people don't want what they say they want but we do know what they want and not want" to you? Maybe people weren't over the moon about what toddlers could do. Doesn't mean they want them out all together.
(yep, still mad about that interview, by merely opening it again )
It's not about "you" though and by you, I don't mean JoAnne65, I mean "you" as in "the individual customer who might be reading the interview." PR is all about image... their image. It's not about us. Companies who go beyond the mom and pop dynamic can't just manage their image by being nice to people. It gets really complicated really fast and any word they say can and will be used against them.
The reason I used the word "dodge" is because she was being asked questions she couldn't directly answer. I don't know if we "knew" that at the time or not for sure, 100%, but I'm pretty sure it was relatively clear even at that point that they can't talk about future content. Heck, they can't say much of anything.
Who is to blame for that? Probably someone at the top and I don't mean RF.
I don't know what there is about telemetry to not believe. That's the thing about those kind of answers. They are ambiguous. I don't think she said anything about how popular toddlers actually are in telemetry (at least, not in that interview... I can't find a word about it). She just gave a non-answer about how players play in different ways and how they have a variety of ways to gather information. Again, what is she going to say? "One of the biggest franchises in video game history, we left out a life stage that a lot of our fans really want, but we're working on it I mean, we can't talk about it. So, uh, we left it out, but you know... well... future content... um... TELEMETRY."
This thing about elders that you're referring to must be from some other interview, cause I can't find it in that one.
Anyway, I think we're just going to have to disagree on the point about "was it the right choice." I don't see how it's an open question at all. This is putting RF in a position where she is supposed to be maintaining the company's positive image and it's a trap. Yes means "I hate toddlers." No means "one of the biggest franchises in video game history (and probably one of EA's most reliable money maker PC games" made a major mistake. Also, buy our packs."
It probably sounds like I'm defending her, but honestly, I'm mostly arguing this on the logic of it at this point. That logic being that on further assessment, the interview seems to have been a pretty large PR blunder and it wasn't entirely RF's fault.
The thing is, it's easy to put it all on her and maybe if you asked her, she'd say it should be on her because that's part of her job. But I seriously doubt she's the one who constructed the policy about radio silence.
As for this thing about ridicule, I'm sorry that happened to you, but I don't know what to tell you, aside from that. I really have no interest in getting into some thing about the history of this forum. I just found it compelling that I saw the interview in a different light than I had before and I thought I would share that point; that maybe it would be interesting to some people.
Believe me, I'm no stranger to get all over corporate nonsense. But I do get wary about particular people being targeted, when it seems that they may not be the villain they are portrayed as. Getting on a corporation's case is one thing. Getting on a person's case is a whole other thing.
@Triplis it's a little easy to say that the question was wrong or leading or put her in a difficult position though, especially cause answering these types of questions is her job. Now I realize PR spokespeople are always blamed for whatever goes wrong because they're the ones who have to face the public but instead of saying something weird about telemetry results, she could've just answered "maybe satisfied isn't the right word, but at the time, it's the decision we had to make. But we understand how important family play is to our customers, and we will do everything we can to give them the most satisfying experience possible." - There you go, validates peoples' feelings without promising anything. I get she had to dodge, but you can always dodge in a way that offends people and in a way that (although it will still offend some people) doesn't. That's my opinion anyway, I might be wrong
What I miss is my colony playstyle. Culling, small worlds, and regular patches that change the game plan are the killers for me. I get used to something. Then it no longer matters. Ad nauseum. I can't get attached to something if I feel it won't matter in the next round. I did it for 2 years with S4.
I still have my save. It sits in stasis, waiting for the day it will matter to play it again. But by then, it may not even be playable.
Everything I've mentioned is S4 only. The game has undergone so many changes since the day I paid for it that I truly can not explain what my issue is with it anymore. I really enjoyed it at first. Now that's gone.
S3 introduced a similar issue to me.
I just don't know how to explain it. Simulations are typically not my game of choice. The Sims struck a nerve of interest in me at one point. Maybe it was a level of infinite possibilities. I don't know. I invested many years in it. That's the part that makes it difficult to let go of. But if one wanted an explanation from me. They surely wouldn't get it unless I wrote a novel that probably wouldn't even touch on the issue. I just can't word it.
you will have probably a hard time then, cause constant patches changing the game quite a lot seems to be the new thing now, coming from mobile, DLC & Early Access, games are being developed now while they are being played already, many of them don't even get finished, bugfree, or keep the promisses made to sell it
if you want to avoid that, then
either you should start playing a game first after the development is closed
or start it with the premiss of fleeting quality, lasting only for a month, if you can't accept that, then there is just the first option
i won't be participating in the forums & the gallery anymore - thanks EA
I didn't think that they ever would release toddlers, pets or seasons because it was obviously that they didn't plan TS4 to be similar to the previous games and because it was obvious that they could easily have released toddlers at least 18 months ago if they had wanted to. So in many months they didn't plan to release toddlers at all after they had dropped them for the basegame.
But something happened a few months ago when they suddenly began to work on toddlers again. The only explanation I can imagine is that EA's marketing department didn't like neither the sales numbers nor the continued hype about toddlers. So EA must have told them to resume their work on toddlers but to be silent about it. Most likely because EA's marketing department hadn't decided yet how toddlers should be released. Should they be released as a GP, a part of an EP or for free?
Finally the marketing department must have decided to release them for free because a toddler GP wasn't likely to sell too well anyway and because a releasement that way would have meant that all future expansions would have to be made in a way where they could work correctly whether the toddler GP was installed or not. By releasing toddlers for free they could avoid that and assume that everybody not had the toddler update installed. The effect on future sales numbers for other expansions would likely also be bigger if toddlers were released for free. So releasing toddlers for free would likely be worth it.
But now this raises new questions. Has EA really changed the original plans about TS4 being a different Sims game with easier and happier gameplay and with less focus on raising kids? Has the sales numbers really been so disappointing that EA has given up and also changed the plans for the future expansions such that they again will be more traditional EPs such as Seasons, Pets, University and Supernaturals? Or will EA still want them to be new GPs and EPs more suited to partying, vacations and similar things? I am not sure anymore.
Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start
They wouldn't do that for several reasons:
1. If they knew that TS4 would have disappointing sales then they would have told both EA's top and the developers to make the game different.
2. They are educated and paid to try to get as high sales numbers as possible.
3. Their future salaries and bonuses are probably very dependent on the sales numbers for all EA's games.
The only thing that could have influenced them just a little was that they of course wanted TS3 and its expansions to still sell well too. Therefore they wanted TS4 to be as different from TS3 as possible within reasonable limits.
and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
Toddlers were clearly dropped from the basegame for reasons which most likely were:
1. To make it possible to finish the basegame before the deadline and within the budget.
2. TS4 was planned to focus more on happy partying and less on family play to make it different from TS3. Therefore babies, toddlers, children and teens were seen as less important than they were for the previous games. Who would want to bring toddlers to parties or dates anyway?
But the hype about toddlers must have become much more permanent and loud than the marketing department in their wildest dreams had expected. This is the only possible explanation why the developers suddenly a few months ago were told to resume their work on toddlers because it would have been both cheaper and better to release toddlers at least 18 months ago. EA's marketing department would never have preferred to release toddlers this late and thereby accepted the extra expenses and all the bad talk about the missing toddlers in all those months if EA had planned to release toddlers at all.
If you want to place blame some place, do it to the person who decided that TS 4 would an online mmo type game in the first place and set the development down that path or you could place the blame on the person who made the decision to change the online game to what we have now 2/3 the way through development.
There is plenty of blame to go around including it's player base. As far as telemetry goes, I turn that type of information off on any game that has it. I always have and always will. Maxis knows people do this and that it's not a true representation on what people want, use , or whatever in their games. Telemetry from Ts3 didn't tell them that people wanted the game to be an online mmo, have no open world, no CASt, no CAW, limitations at every turn, teens to be identical to YA, and didn't tell them that we wanted babies to be objects. That was nothing more than an excuse since there are things they just can't tell you.
Like I said before, it was a step in the right direction and toddlers were well done, so kudos to them for that. That was no small update and I'm sure they have been working on it for quite some time, not just the last few months like someone mentioned.
I haven't read all the opinions in the thread yet, but I'm gonna say safety, it's a no from me. Yeah, okay. The sims 4 is a good game for a few reasons, it has some really cool features, but I think the ridiculous part is there is three types of games to buy. Stuff Packs, expansions and game packs? Like what the hell is that for? Why cut the content into so many pieces, I'd rather spend a lot of money on a expansions which has all the features of said stuff packs and game packs... I just don't get it. (is it so they get to rake in money and have a bigger budget for ts5? hopefully then it'll be ts3 that runs smoother, and some features from ts4) I don't even own the sims 4 but i have played it and seen a lot of gameplay from the newer expansions, but the fact i'd be buying so many games has put me off. The only two things I sorta like is the face sculpting in cas and then the emotions, which even then are too easily ....what's the word... modifiable? manipulated.. etc. Maybe someone has a few arguments that can show me the better side but I just don't see much
This is my wishlist! I'm on mobile so I can't link it properly loool. Thanks everyone for having a Look! Xx
I feel, after seeing this from the beginning, that this iteration was meant to be different from the others and have a different timeline. I believe this was mentioned before (correct me if im wrong) That they werent going to follow a "tradition" timeline of how things will be released so on and so forth. So, in that sense, I dont see it as being off track. However, I do agree that there have been more bugs with more things that have come with the base game of other iterations but are being released later in this iteration, however I will also say that other iterations (mainly meaning 3) has a lot of bugs and issues that were left in the dust after they started 4. I atleast hope they dont do the same with this game and make sure it is complete and mostly bug free before moving on to a possible next iteration.
"Bada su the gorn bada su the brawn bada bady oda aba donk donk donk gerbits gerbits vo gerbits".
That interview infuriates me... it's nothing but a big F * U * in the face to all the Sims players. I'm not even a Family player and the attitude taken by Franklin and EA was so insulting. Just reading this again solidifies my reason not to buy anything else for TS4.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are multiple different teams working on EPs, SPs, GPs and free content, so even if one team is on the right track doesn't necessarily mean that they all will be. For example, in my opinion the GP team has been doing pretty great from the start. The SP team started off fairly meh, got worse with CKS and Movie Hangout, and has gotten increasingly better since then and I think they're on the right track now with the last several packs looking pretty great. The EP team, however, started out fairly decently with GtW, but has gone downhill since, with GT being incohesive and lackluster, and City Living being a huge disappointment by dangling things like elevators and apartments in our face but not giving us any freedom with them. As far as I'm concerned that's going backwards on the wrong track!
So yeah, I think there are definitely some teams that are working in the right direction now, but the EP team needs to get its act together. Especially because EPs are where big systems and overarching gameplay gets added, I think that it will be hard for things to improve without them getting better. But then again, toddlers were a pretty big update, so maybe if the free content team is allowed to tackle other parts of the base game system and lifestages and give them the same in-depth treatment, then we might be able to see some real improvement in the core game.
In the end I think it's still too early to tell, but I do believe it's a good sign and I am much more hopeful than I was before the update, which is why I'm bothering to be here on the forums talking about it at all, as I'd previously given up on the game.
@Triplis it's a little easy to say that the question was wrong or leading or put her in a difficult position though, especially cause answering these types of questions is her job. Now I realize PR spokespeople are always blamed for whatever goes wrong because they're the ones who have to face the public but instead of saying something weird about telemetry results, she could've just answered "maybe satisfied isn't the right word, but at the time, it's the decision we had to make. But we understand how important family play is to our customers, and we will do everything we can to give them the most satisfying experience possible." - There you go, validates peoples' feelings without promising anything. I get she had to dodge, but you can always dodge in a way that offends people and in a way that (although it will still offend some people) doesn't. That's my opinion anyway, I might be wrong
I don't think it's a poor option what you came up with, but I don't think she was prepared for that kind of question in the moment either. Plus keep in mind, she is clearly trying to put a positive spin on things. So any kind of acknowledgement that the decision wasn't a good one puts the game/company in a bad light.
And honestly, I think from her perspective, it was a good decision... they were able to find time for toddlers down the road and make a really fleshed out version that a lot of people are very happy with. At the time, calling it a good decision sounded bad because we didn't and couldn't know toddlers were on the list, but that's the tricky thing about perspective and it's a trap I see game types fall into a lot because they're into games by trade, not politics; they aren't used to all the traps that get set, or traps that aren't even set by anyone, but exist anyway. It's easy to forget that the words coming out of your mouth may look completely different, depending on the amount of information available to you.
I didn't think that they ever would release toddlers, pets or seasons because it was obviously that they didn't plan TS4 to be similar to the previous games and because it was obvious that they could easily have released toddlers at least 18 months ago if they had wanted to. So in many months they didn't plan to release toddlers at all after they had dropped them for the basegame.
But something happened a few months ago when they suddenly began to work on toddlers again. The only explanation I can imagine is that EA's marketing department didn't like neither the sales numbers nor the continued hype about toddlers. So EA must have told them to resume their work on toddlers but to be silent about it. Most likely because EA's marketing department hadn't decided yet how toddlers should be released. Should they be released as a GP, a part of an EP or for free?
Finally the marketing department must have decided to release them for free because a toddler GP wasn't likely to sell too well anyway and because a releasement that way would have meant that all future expansions would have to be made in a way where they could work correctly whether the toddler GP was installed or not. By releasing toddlers for free they could avoid that and assume that everybody not had the toddler update installed. The effect on future sales numbers for other expansions would likely also be bigger if toddlers were released for free. So releasing toddlers for free would likely be worth it.
But now this raises new questions. Has EA really changed the original plans about TS4 being a different Sims game with easier and happier gameplay and with less focus on raising kids? Has the sales numbers really been so disappointing that EA has given up and also changed the plans for the future expansions such that they again will be more traditional EPs such as Seasons, Pets, University and Supernaturals? Or will EA still want them to be new GPs and EPs more suited to partying, vacations and similar things? I am not sure anymore.
Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start
They wouldn't do that for several reasons:
1. If they knew that TS4 would have disappointing sales then they would have told both EA's top and the developers to make the game different.
2. They are educated and paid to try to get as high sales numbers as possible.
3. Their future salaries and bonuses are probably very dependent on the sales numbers for all EA's games.
The only thing that could have influenced them just a little was that they of course wanted TS3 and its expansions to still sell well too. Therefore they wanted TS4 to be as different from TS3 as possible within reasonable limits.
and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
Toddlers were clearly dropped from the basegame for reasons which most likely were:
1. To make it possible to finish the basegame before the deadline and within the budget.
2. TS4 was planned to focus more on happy partying and less on family play to make it different from TS3. Therefore babies, toddlers, children and teens were seen as less important than they were for the previous games. Who would want to bring toddlers to parties or dates anyway?
But the hype about toddlers must have become much more permanent and loud than the marketing department in their wildest dreams had expected. This is the only possible explanation why the developers suddenly a few months ago were told to resume their work on toddlers because it would have been both cheaper and better to release toddlers at least 18 months ago. EA's marketing department would never have preferred to release toddlers this late and thereby accepted the extra expenses and all the bad talk about the missing toddlers in all those months if EA had planned to release toddlers at all.
Do you have an actual source for that timeframe or is it just conjecture? Because I haven't seen anything to suggest the gurus just suddenly started working on toddlers 'a few months ago' on some whim of new management or marketing. Here's what one guru said right after the toddler patch release:
TL;DR It's been part of the plan for a long time. We knew folks wanted it and so did we. We've been working on them throughout a lot of the "endless feedback".
Longer explanation:
Toddlers are something we've desperately wanted to do since we launched. And for free as a patch too - not paid content. We felt strongly about that and it was very important to us. It took time to get everything in order (balancing SP, GP, EP, and free content development simultaneously is no easy task. It's actually quite challenging). Simple as that.
Trust me, at several points we wanted to scream from the highest mountaintop "THEY'RE COMING!" but were simply unable to. So we kept our heads down, weathered the repeated feedback, and did our best to get quality content into your hands as soon as we possibly could.
With a little luck we've made Simmers happier today and given them something to enjoy.
I hope you all enjoy it too! You deserve it!
Why dance around us in the first place, what are we, infantile? Why dodge, we're your customers fcol. Don't dodge on me or I'll dodge on you, which is in fact what happened. Or do you think it's a coincidence all of a sudden everybody has started playing Sims 4 again? Nobody can deny anymore a missing life stage was a huge deal for many players. For two years family players have been ridiculed on these forums ("but what exactly do you mean by family play, that's so different for everyone, I, I LOVE family play in Sims 4, it's perfect, so now please stop raining on my parade and quit mentioning the t-word ever again because I'll keep entering your pathetic topics with snarky gifs and comments and spoil your discussions").
I've never believed this telemetry thing, because not only have I played the game myself, I've also followed I don't know how many stories of other people and there were always toddlers in it and they were always played with. The stage doesn't last very long though, because in real life the stage doesn't last long either, compared to the rest of your life. Didn't see many elders in those stories (which doesn't mean they don't matter but they could be much better, just like the toddlers). I simply don't buy this telemetry showed less player activity around toddlers than around elders.
"So you’re satisfied that not having toddlers was the right choice?" was an obvious question and an open question. I'm glad someone finally asked because EA couldn't be moved to say anything about it using none leading questions. The answer: "So absolutely, I feel like it’s the best decision for the game to date." Yeah, buzzzz, is the wrong answer mrs. Franklin, it was never a good decision. Not back then and not two years later. If you develop a Sims game, don't cut out the sims. By saying "hahaha you know, our fans ask for a lot of things" as if we're a group of whining, never content people. This was a life stage fcol, not just anything. "We also have telemetry to tell us what people are actually playing with and using", 'actually', doesn't that sound awfully "people don't want what they say they want but we do know what they want and not want" to you? Maybe people weren't over the moon about what toddlers could do. Doesn't mean they want them out all together.
(yep, still mad about that interview, by merely opening it again )
It's not about "you" though and by you, I don't mean JoAnne65, I mean "you" as in "the individual customer who might be reading the interview." PR is all about image... their image. It's not about us. Companies who go beyond the mom and pop dynamic can't just manage their image by being nice to people. It gets really complicated really fast and any word they say can and will be used against them.
The reason I used the word "dodge" is because she was being asked questions she couldn't directly answer. I don't know if we "knew" that at the time or not for sure, 100%, but I'm pretty sure it was relatively clear even at that point that they can't talk about future content. Heck, they can't say much of anything.
Who is to blame for that? Probably someone at the top and I don't mean RF.
I don't know what there is about telemetry to not believe. That's the thing about those kind of answers. They are ambiguous. I don't think she said anything about how popular toddlers actually are in telemetry (at least, not in that interview... I can't find a word about it). She just gave a non-answer about how players play in different ways and how they have a variety of ways to gather information. Again, what is she going to say? "One of the biggest franchises in video game history, we left out a life stage that a lot of our fans really want, but we're working on it I mean, we can't talk about it. So, uh, we left it out, but you know... well... future content... um... TELEMETRY."
This thing about elders that you're referring to must be from some other interview, cause I can't find it in that one.
Anyway, I think we're just going to have to disagree on the point about "was it the right choice." I don't see how it's an open question at all. This is putting RF in a position where she is supposed to be maintaining the company's positive image and it's a trap. Yes means "I hate toddlers." No means "one of the biggest franchises in video game history (and probably one of EA's most reliable money maker PC games" made a major mistake. Also, buy our packs."
It probably sounds like I'm defending her, but honestly, I'm mostly arguing this on the logic of it at this point. That logic being that on further assessment, the interview seems to have been a pretty large PR blunder and it wasn't entirely RF's fault.
The thing is, it's easy to put it all on her and maybe if you asked her, she'd say it should be on her because that's part of her job. But I seriously doubt she's the one who constructed the policy about radio silence.
As for this thing about ridicule, I'm sorry that happened to you, but I don't know what to tell you, aside from that. I really have no interest in getting into some thing about the history of this forum. I just found it compelling that I saw the interview in a different light than I had before and I thought I would share that point; that maybe it would be interesting to some people.
Believe me, I'm no stranger to get all over corporate nonsense. But I do get wary about particular people being targeted, when it seems that they may not be the villain they are portrayed as. Getting on a corporation's case is one thing. Getting on a person's case is a whole other thing.
I understand what you're saying, but in fact - without claiming to be able to judge her overall capacities in her job and she seems like a friendly lady - I think she damaged EA PR wise. If the question took her by surprise, that would sound highly unprofessional to me. To me the interview felt like adding fuel to the fires, though unintended I'm sure. Why couldn't they simply tell the truth? I don't really understand that. If they knew they were coming, why not say so? Apart from the fact I think they should have been in there from the start in the first place. Sims 4 had a goofy start.
What you say about telemetry in fact is exactly how I feel about it. I'm sure there was some telemetry, but I can't imagine it was anywhere near reliable. First of all loads of players played TS3 offline and second, what would those figures say anyway. That people didn't like playing that life stage or that they weren't that interested in playing the features attached to the life stage? I do agree with you by the way it wasn't all RF's fault, that's not how things work in large companies.
The ridicule thing didn't happen to me, I was merely an observer. It happened to everyone who wanted to reach out to EA and tell them they still missed toddlers in the game. And what they'd like to see if they would be added. And in fact a lot of what I saw passing by in those threads is used, EA did listen.
I didn't think that they ever would release toddlers, pets or seasons because it was obviously that they didn't plan TS4 to be similar to the previous games and because it was obvious that they could easily have released toddlers at least 18 months ago if they had wanted to. So in many months they didn't plan to release toddlers at all after they had dropped them for the basegame.
But something happened a few months ago when they suddenly began to work on toddlers again. The only explanation I can imagine is that EA's marketing department didn't like neither the sales numbers nor the continued hype about toddlers. So EA must have told them to resume their work on toddlers but to be silent about it. Most likely because EA's marketing department hadn't decided yet how toddlers should be released. Should they be released as a GP, a part of an EP or for free?
Finally the marketing department must have decided to release them for free because a toddler GP wasn't likely to sell too well anyway and because a releasement that way would have meant that all future expansions would have to be made in a way where they could work correctly whether the toddler GP was installed or not. By releasing toddlers for free they could avoid that and assume that everybody not had the toddler update installed. The effect on future sales numbers for other expansions would likely also be bigger if toddlers were released for free. So releasing toddlers for free would likely be worth it.
But now this raises new questions. Has EA really changed the original plans about TS4 being a different Sims game with easier and happier gameplay and with less focus on raising kids? Has the sales numbers really been so disappointing that EA has given up and also changed the plans for the future expansions such that they again will be more traditional EPs such as Seasons, Pets, University and Supernaturals? Or will EA still want them to be new GPs and EPs more suited to partying, vacations and similar things? I am not sure anymore.
Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start
They wouldn't do that for several reasons:
1. If they knew that TS4 would have disappointing sales then they would have told both EA's top and the developers to make the game different.
2. They are educated and paid to try to get as high sales numbers as possible.
3. Their future salaries and bonuses are probably very dependent on the sales numbers for all EA's games.
The only thing that could have influenced them just a little was that they of course wanted TS3 and its expansions to still sell well too. Therefore they wanted TS4 to be as different from TS3 as possible within reasonable limits.
and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
Toddlers were clearly dropped from the basegame for reasons which most likely were:
1. To make it possible to finish the basegame before the deadline and within the budget.
2. TS4 was planned to focus more on happy partying and less on family play to make it different from TS3. Therefore babies, toddlers, children and teens were seen as less important than they were for the previous games. Who would want to bring toddlers to parties or dates anyway?
But the hype about toddlers must have become much more permanent and loud than the marketing department in their wildest dreams had expected. This is the only possible explanation why the developers suddenly a few months ago were told to resume their work on toddlers because it would have been both cheaper and better to release toddlers at least 18 months ago. EA's marketing department would never have preferred to release toddlers this late and thereby accepted the extra expenses and all the bad talk about the missing toddlers in all those months if EA had planned to release toddlers at all.
Do you have an actual source for that timeframe or is it just conjecture? Because I haven't seen anything to suggest the gurus just suddenly started working on toddlers 'a few months ago' on some whim of new management or marketing. Here's what one guru said right after the toddler patch release:
TL;DR It's been part of the plan for a long time. We knew folks wanted it and so did we. We've been working on them throughout a lot of the "endless feedback".
Longer explanation:
Toddlers are something we've desperately wanted to do since we launched. And for free as a patch too - not paid content. We felt strongly about that and it was very important to us. It took time to get everything in order (balancing SP, GP, EP, and free content development simultaneously is no easy task. It's actually quite challenging). Simple as that.
Trust me, at several points we wanted to scream from the highest mountaintop "THEY'RE COMING!" but were simply unable to. So we kept our heads down, weathered the repeated feedback, and did our best to get quality content into your hands as soon as we possibly could.
With a little luck we've made Simmers happier today and given them something to enjoy.
I hope you all enjoy it too! You deserve it!
I have a university degree in computer science. Therefore I know enough about programming and computers to be sure that they didn't use more than two years at all to make the toddlers and they probably started making them about three years ago fo the basegame.
Then they dropped toddlers as Rachel Franklin explained. She was a little clumsy in the way she expressed it as "being the best decision at all" because she shouldn't have done that if she couldn't tell us why she thought that. But I am sure that it was because otherwise they would have had to ask EA for more money and time to finish the basegame or to drop something else which EA didn't want them to drop (like the multitasking or the children age group).
With a normal full team toddlers couldn't have taken more than at most 6 months to make. So if it took longer time than that then it was because they only used a small fraction of a normal team to make them or because they didn't work on them at all for many months. The toddlers didn't require more work than the children, the teens or the young adults. So if toddlers really required almost three years to make than they couldn't have made a full basegame for TS2, TS3 or TS4 even in 10 years. Therefore I know that they didn't work full time on toddlers. Maybe they had a small team of 3 or 4 developers working on them all the time. But I find that unlikely too because it was obvious that it would have been much better to just finish the toddlers fast so they could have been released at least 18 months ago. Therefore I am still convinced that it wasn't EA's plan to release them at all when they were dropped for the basegame. But this means that nobody worked on toddlers until EA decided to make toddlers anyway because people continued with much more hype about them than EA had expected. When this decision was taken I don't see why EA should decide to only have so tiny a team working on them that it would take years to finish them?
I didn't think that they ever would release toddlers, pets or seasons because it was obviously that they didn't plan TS4 to be similar to the previous games and because it was obvious that they could easily have released toddlers at least 18 months ago if they had wanted to. So in many months they didn't plan to release toddlers at all after they had dropped them for the basegame.
But something happened a few months ago when they suddenly began to work on toddlers again. The only explanation I can imagine is that EA's marketing department didn't like neither the sales numbers nor the continued hype about toddlers. So EA must have told them to resume their work on toddlers but to be silent about it. Most likely because EA's marketing department hadn't decided yet how toddlers should be released. Should they be released as a GP, a part of an EP or for free?
Finally the marketing department must have decided to release them for free because a toddler GP wasn't likely to sell too well anyway and because a releasement that way would have meant that all future expansions would have to be made in a way where they could work correctly whether the toddler GP was installed or not. By releasing toddlers for free they could avoid that and assume that everybody not had the toddler update installed. The effect on future sales numbers for other expansions would likely also be bigger if toddlers were released for free. So releasing toddlers for free would likely be worth it.
But now this raises new questions. Has EA really changed the original plans about TS4 being a different Sims game with easier and happier gameplay and with less focus on raising kids? Has the sales numbers really been so disappointing that EA has given up and also changed the plans for the future expansions such that they again will be more traditional EPs such as Seasons, Pets, University and Supernaturals? Or will EA still want them to be new GPs and EPs more suited to partying, vacations and similar things? I am not sure anymore.
Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start
They wouldn't do that for several reasons:
1. If they knew that TS4 would have disappointing sales then they would have told both EA's top and the developers to make the game different.
2. They are educated and paid to try to get as high sales numbers as possible.
3. Their future salaries and bonuses are probably very dependent on the sales numbers for all EA's games.
The only thing that could have influenced them just a little was that they of course wanted TS3 and its expansions to still sell well too. Therefore they wanted TS4 to be as different from TS3 as possible within reasonable limits.
and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
Toddlers were clearly dropped from the basegame for reasons which most likely were:
1. To make it possible to finish the basegame before the deadline and within the budget.
2. TS4 was planned to focus more on happy partying and less on family play to make it different from TS3. Therefore babies, toddlers, children and teens were seen as less important than they were for the previous games. Who would want to bring toddlers to parties or dates anyway?
But the hype about toddlers must have become much more permanent and loud than the marketing department in their wildest dreams had expected. This is the only possible explanation why the developers suddenly a few months ago were told to resume their work on toddlers because it would have been both cheaper and better to release toddlers at least 18 months ago. EA's marketing department would never have preferred to release toddlers this late and thereby accepted the extra expenses and all the bad talk about the missing toddlers in all those months if EA had planned to release toddlers at all.
Do you have an actual source for that timeframe or is it just conjecture? Because I haven't seen anything to suggest the gurus just suddenly started working on toddlers 'a few months ago' on some whim of new management or marketing. Here's what one guru said right after the toddler patch release:
TL;DR It's been part of the plan for a long time. We knew folks wanted it and so did we. We've been working on them throughout a lot of the "endless feedback".
Longer explanation:
Toddlers are something we've desperately wanted to do since we launched. And for free as a patch too - not paid content. We felt strongly about that and it was very important to us. It took time to get everything in order (balancing SP, GP, EP, and free content development simultaneously is no easy task. It's actually quite challenging). Simple as that.
Trust me, at several points we wanted to scream from the highest mountaintop "THEY'RE COMING!" but were simply unable to. So we kept our heads down, weathered the repeated feedback, and did our best to get quality content into your hands as soon as we possibly could.
With a little luck we've made Simmers happier today and given them something to enjoy.
I hope you all enjoy it too! You deserve it!
I have a university degree in computer science. Therefore I know enough about programming and computers to be sure that they didn't use more than two years at all to make the toddlers and they probably started making them about three years ago fo the basegame.
Then they dropped toddlers as Rachel Franklin explained. She was a little clumsy in the way she expressed it as "being the best decision at all" because she shouldn't have done that if she couldn't tell us why she thought that. But I am sure that it was because otherwise they would have had to ask EA for more money and time to finish the basegame or to drop something else which EA didn't want them to drop (like the multitasking or the children age group).
With a normal full team toddlers couldn't have taken more than at most 6 months to make. So if it took longer time than that then it was because they only used a small fraction of a normal team to make them or because they didn't work on them at all for many months. The toddlers didn't require more work than the children, the teens or the young adults. So if toddlers really required almost three years to make than they couldn't have made a full basegame for TS2, TS3 or TS4 even in 10 years. Therefore I know that they didn't work full time on toddlers. Maybe they had a small team of 3 or 4 developers working on them all the time. But I find that unlikely too because it was obvious that it would have been much better to just finish the toddlers fast so they could have been released at least 18 months ago. Therefore I am still convinced that it wasn't EA's plan to release them at all when they were dropped for the basegame. But this means that nobody worked on toddlers until EA decided to make toddlers anyway because people continued with much more hype about them than EA had expected. When this decision was taken I don't see why EA should decide to only have so tiny a team working on them that it would take years to finish them?
It seems most likely to me that they worked on them piecemeal for a while... getting in bits and pieces here and there. Using code for paid features to help inform code for toddlers. And throughout all the juggling, they finally found a spot where they could do focused work on toddlers. But because it was such a big undertaking and was going to be free content, they may have had to find a spot like that more than once. As in, get more progress in on toddlers, then oh wait, this paid pack needs some more time. Set toddlers aside for now. We'll get back to it when we find another block of time.
If you note the post made by Ninja about how their work environment is (I don't have it on hand, but the rough paraphrase is, "We work on packs that we want to work on and on the packs that need the most attention") you can guess that the toddler work probably wasn't all that focused for a while and I don't think there's some EA overlord that had much to do with it. A lot of work environments are clear-cut, top-down, management tells you what to do and you do it. Theirs seems to have a bit more flexibility in encouraging them to work on the things that are the most compelling to them when the opportunity arises.
It's a little reminiscent of how Valve does things, when I read about it years ago.
So I don't see any basis for believing that toddlers were ever not a priority, especially considering that a guru said they were from the beginning. Keep in mind that if they were firm on making toddlers free and on making toddlers really good, that meant they couldn't just grab a block of paid pack time and hammer out amazing toddlers. They probably had to work it into the blocks of time that allow them to put out free updates and it's clear those blocks are few and far between (not to mention the fact that we had a number of those updates happen anyway). And even then, I'm sure they were pushing it a bit in terms of scheduling, with perhaps a little justification for time spent gambling on the idea that adding really good toddlers would make some extra pack sales.
In the main, I think the factor you're missing more than anything is the fact that they were putting out toddlers for free to those who own the game. Charity doesn't make for a good quarterly report. So naturally, it would be hard for them to simply push aside paid content to get toddlers down.
I haven't read all the opinions in the thread yet, but I'm gonna say safety, it's a no from me. Yeah, okay. The sims 4 is a good game for a few reasons, it has some really cool features, but I think the ridiculous part is there is three types of games to buy. Stuff Packs, expansions and game packs? Like what the plum is that for? Why cut the content into so many pieces, I'd rather spend a lot of money on a expansions which has all the features of said stuff packs and game packs... I just don't get it. (is it so they get to rake in money and have a bigger budget for ts5? hopefully then it'll be ts3 that runs smoother, and some features from ts4) I don't even own the sims 4 but i have played it and seen a lot of gameplay from the newer expansions, but the fact i'd be buying so many games has put me off. The only two things I sorta like is the face sculpting in cas and then the emotions, which even then are too easily ....what's the word... modifiable? manipulated.. etc. Maybe someone has a few arguments that can show me the better side but I just don't see much
You realize you had 3 parts before too though, don't you? EPs, SPs, and store content. Dividing this game up in small bits is kinda ... the whole sims philosophy.
@Triplis it's a little easy to say that the question was wrong or leading or put her in a difficult position though, especially cause answering these types of questions is her job. Now I realize PR spokespeople are always blamed for whatever goes wrong because they're the ones who have to face the public but instead of saying something weird about telemetry results, she could've just answered "maybe satisfied isn't the right word, but at the time, it's the decision we had to make. But we understand how important family play is to our customers, and we will do everything we can to give them the most satisfying experience possible." - There you go, validates peoples' feelings without promising anything. I get she had to dodge, but you can always dodge in a way that offends people and in a way that (although it will still offend some people) doesn't. That's my opinion anyway, I might be wrong
I don't think it's a poor option what you came up with, but I don't think she was prepared for that kind of question in the moment either. Plus keep in mind, she is clearly trying to put a positive spin on things. So any kind of acknowledgement that the decision wasn't a good one puts the game/company in a bad light.
And honestly, I think from her perspective, it was a good decision... they were able to find time for toddlers down the road and make a really fleshed out version that a lot of people are very happy with. At the time, calling it a good decision sounded bad because we didn't and couldn't know toddlers were on the list, but that's the tricky thing about perspective and it's a trap I see game types fall into a lot because they're into games by trade, not politics; they aren't used to all the traps that get set, or traps that aren't even set by anyone, but exist anyway. It's easy to forget that the words coming out of your mouth may look completely different, depending on the amount of information available to you.
I'm still not convinced she was going to add them at that time, it still really doesn't sound like that to me. But I'm not her so I can't possibly know. But are you seriously saying she wasn't prepared to receive the one question she'd been receiving from the get go? Yeah no, I don't believe that.
I didn't think that they ever would release toddlers, pets or seasons because it was obviously that they didn't plan TS4 to be similar to the previous games and because it was obvious that they could easily have released toddlers at least 18 months ago if they had wanted to. So in many months they didn't plan to release toddlers at all after they had dropped them for the basegame.
But something happened a few months ago when they suddenly began to work on toddlers again. The only explanation I can imagine is that EA's marketing department didn't like neither the sales numbers nor the continued hype about toddlers. So EA must have told them to resume their work on toddlers but to be silent about it. Most likely because EA's marketing department hadn't decided yet how toddlers should be released. Should they be released as a GP, a part of an EP or for free?
Finally the marketing department must have decided to release them for free because a toddler GP wasn't likely to sell too well anyway and because a releasement that way would have meant that all future expansions would have to be made in a way where they could work correctly whether the toddler GP was installed or not. By releasing toddlers for free they could avoid that and assume that everybody not had the toddler update installed. The effect on future sales numbers for other expansions would likely also be bigger if toddlers were released for free. So releasing toddlers for free would likely be worth it.
But now this raises new questions. Has EA really changed the original plans about TS4 being a different Sims game with easier and happier gameplay and with less focus on raising kids? Has the sales numbers really been so disappointing that EA has given up and also changed the plans for the future expansions such that they again will be more traditional EPs such as Seasons, Pets, University and Supernaturals? Or will EA still want them to be new GPs and EPs more suited to partying, vacations and similar things? I am not sure anymore.
Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start
They wouldn't do that for several reasons:
1. If they knew that TS4 would have disappointing sales then they would have told both EA's top and the developers to make the game different.
2. They are educated and paid to try to get as high sales numbers as possible.
3. Their future salaries and bonuses are probably very dependent on the sales numbers for all EA's games.
The only thing that could have influenced them just a little was that they of course wanted TS3 and its expansions to still sell well too. Therefore they wanted TS4 to be as different from TS3 as possible within reasonable limits.
and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
Toddlers were clearly dropped from the basegame for reasons which most likely were:
1. To make it possible to finish the basegame before the deadline and within the budget.
2. TS4 was planned to focus more on happy partying and less on family play to make it different from TS3. Therefore babies, toddlers, children and teens were seen as less important than they were for the previous games. Who would want to bring toddlers to parties or dates anyway?
But the hype about toddlers must have become much more permanent and loud than the marketing department in their wildest dreams had expected. This is the only possible explanation why the developers suddenly a few months ago were told to resume their work on toddlers because it would have been both cheaper and better to release toddlers at least 18 months ago. EA's marketing department would never have preferred to release toddlers this late and thereby accepted the extra expenses and all the bad talk about the missing toddlers in all those months if EA had planned to release toddlers at all.
Do you have an actual source for that timeframe or is it just conjecture? Because I haven't seen anything to suggest the gurus just suddenly started working on toddlers 'a few months ago' on some whim of new management or marketing. Here's what one guru said right after the toddler patch release:
TL;DR It's been part of the plan for a long time. We knew folks wanted it and so did we. We've been working on them throughout a lot of the "endless feedback".
Longer explanation:
Toddlers are something we've desperately wanted to do since we launched. And for free as a patch too - not paid content. We felt strongly about that and it was very important to us. It took time to get everything in order (balancing SP, GP, EP, and free content development simultaneously is no easy task. It's actually quite challenging). Simple as that.
Trust me, at several points we wanted to scream from the highest mountaintop "THEY'RE COMING!" but were simply unable to. So we kept our heads down, weathered the repeated feedback, and did our best to get quality content into your hands as soon as we possibly could.
With a little luck we've made Simmers happier today and given them something to enjoy.
I hope you all enjoy it too! You deserve it!
I have a university degree in computer science. Therefore I know enough about programming and computers to be sure that they didn't use more than two years at all to make the toddlers and they probably started making them about three years ago fo the basegame.
Then they dropped toddlers as Rachel Franklin explained. She was a little clumsy in the way she expressed it as "being the best decision at all" because she shouldn't have done that if she couldn't tell us why she thought that. But I am sure that it was because otherwise they would have had to ask EA for more money and time to finish the basegame or to drop something else which EA didn't want them to drop (like the multitasking or the children age group).
With a normal full team toddlers couldn't have taken more than at most 6 months to make. So if it took longer time than that then it was because they only used a small fraction of a normal team to make them or because they didn't work on them at all for many months. The toddlers didn't require more work than the children, the teens or the young adults. So if toddlers really required almost three years to make than they couldn't have made a full basegame for TS2, TS3 or TS4 even in 10 years. Therefore I know that they didn't work full time on toddlers. Maybe they had a small team of 3 or 4 developers working on them all the time. But I find that unlikely too because it was obvious that it would have been much better to just finish the toddlers fast so they could have been released at least 18 months ago. Therefore I am still convinced that it wasn't EA's plan to release them at all when they were dropped for the basegame. But this means that nobody worked on toddlers until EA decided to make toddlers anyway because people continued with much more hype about them than EA had expected. When this decision was taken I don't see why EA should decide to only have so tiny a team working on them that it would take years to finish them?
It seems most likely to me that they worked on them piecemeal for a while... getting in bits and pieces here and there. Using code for paid features to help inform code for toddlers. And throughout all the juggling, they finally found a spot where they could do focused work on toddlers. But because it was such a big undertaking and was going to be free content, they may have had to find a spot like that more than once. As in, get more progress in on toddlers, then oh wait, this paid pack needs some more time. Set toddlers aside for now. We'll get back to it when we find another block of time.
If you note the post made by Ninja about how their work environment is (I don't have it on hand, but the rough paraphrase is, "We work on packs that we want to work on and on the packs that need the most attention") you can guess that the toddler work probably wasn't all that focused for a while and I don't think there's some EA overlord that had much to do with it. A lot of work environments are clear-cut, top-down, management tells you what to do and you do it. Theirs seems to have a bit more flexibility in encouraging them to work on the things that are the most compelling to them when the opportunity arises.
It's a little reminiscent of how Valve does things, when I read about it years ago.
So I don't see any basis for believing that toddlers were ever not a priority, especially considering that a guru said they were from the beginning. Keep in mind that if they were firm on making toddlers free and on making toddlers really good, that meant they couldn't just grab a block of paid pack time and hammer out amazing toddlers. They probably had to work it into the blocks of time that allow them to put out free updates and it's clear those blocks are few and far between (not to mention the fact that we had a number of those updates happen anyway). And even then, I'm sure they were pushing it a bit in terms of scheduling, with perhaps a little justification for time spent gambling on the idea that adding really good toddlers would make some extra pack sales.
In the main, I think the factor you're missing more than anything is the fact that they were putting out toddlers for free to those who own the game. Charity doesn't make for a good quarterly report. So naturally, it would be hard for them to simply push aside paid content to get toddlers down.
I think that it is the way that they use the word "we" that you and I interpret very differently.
Your interpretation would remind me of a student who told that his/her class had discussed the subjects that the class should be taught and because the teacher had been only a minority the majority (the students) had decided to change the subjects for the teaching and therefore the teacher had just couldn't do anything but to do it. We both know that this isn't how it works.
EA's CEO is paid about $20 million a year in salary and bonuses. So do you really think that he gets all that money just for telling all EA's game studios that they can just make the game like they want and to add expansions like they want??
EA was started as a publisher who only marketed and sold games made by other companies. This was the way EA worked for almost 10 years until EA in 1990 began to buy the companies that made the game because many of those companies were struggling and EA still needed their games to market and sell. The developers often hated it because they had to work much harder under EA and couldn't make their own decisions as they were used to. But EA continued to buy 5 to 10 such companies every year and in some cases the developers left because they didn't even be paid for overtime.
At some point it seems that this changed. I don't know exactly when. But at some time (likely after year 2000) I think that EA changed the hourly wages to salaries and bonuses such that the employees felt more like a team and didn't mind the overtime because they were all paid more if their games and EA were more successful. They learned to think more as "we" and less as "I" because they all got paid more if EA earned more.
Therefore it is difficult to interpret the word "we" when a developer says it. The same developer says "we have been working on toddlers", "we made City Living", "we made the SP", "we made the GP" and so on. But did this developer really work in all those teams? I don't think so.
Such a developer also says "we didn't know how to release toddlers". But was this really a decision which should be made by the developers? I don't think so because it almost certainly was a decision which should be made by EA's marketing department. There just is one problem here: Rachel Franklin was both the executive senior producer of the Sims games, the leader of Maxis and a person which was educated in marketing. So she was probably also involved in decisions about the marketing along with other marketing experts in EA until she left in September 2016 and Samantha Ryan became the leader of both Maxis, EA Mobile and Bioware. But EA isn't a democracy where all the developers just discuss and votes about which games to make and how to make them. The bosses make such decisions after advice from the people who are most suited to advice them - and those people clearly are the marketing experts. (Game designers design the games according to EA's orders and rules, producers supervise the production of the games and programmers and artists just make the games.)
So does "we" said by a developer mean "my current team", "Maxis" or "EA"? I am not sure and I don't even think that "we" always mean the same thing in all discussions. I am quite sure though that "we decided" doesn't always mean the this developer have to always having been personally engaged in the decision because it just seems to mean that this developer is loyal to the company and the decision.
@MzPigglyPooh You are right about the game being unique with a new vision, which means it could run longer then other sim games and I hope the glitches do not remain unfixed like in the past with sims 3......ended so suddenly.
I am not sure I believed the tele explanation either. I don't think you would get realistic numbers. Some people played the game offline and/or bypassed the launcher and Origin all together.
Who knows what they were thinking? The game seemed rather rushed. You could easily come up with a ton of scenarios about what went down. Missing toddlers caused a lot of discontent from the begining.
Giving them for free was a good pl an of action. Firstly they should have been in the game from the begining. They are a life stage. Secondly, if they tried to make us pay for them, it would have set off a revolution. No one would ever trust them again. Some would have bought them, but I imagine the underlying resentment would still be there.
I am not sure I believed the tele explanation either. I don't think you would get realistic numbers. Some people played the game offline and/or bypassed the launcher and Origin all together.
Who knows what they were thinking? The game seemed rather rushed. You could easily come up with a ton of scenarios about what went down. Missing toddlers caused a lot of discontent from the begining.
Giving them for free was a good pl an of action. Firstly they should have been in the game from the begining. They are a life stage. Secondly, if they tried to make us pay for them, it would have set off a revolution. No one would ever trust them again. Some would have bought them, but I imagine the underlying resentment would still be there.
Apparently pl an = plum. Smh.
Also imagine the programming nightmare for having to account for one group having toddlers and another group not having them, when it comes to adding supernatural life states -- which is possibly why we got the toddlers now before the vampire pack dropped, to avoid having to patch in age-up code later (or to have it sitting dormant for players to discover). In Sims 2 it wasn't an issue because the young adult lifestage was limited to University -- if you didn't have University you aged right up to adult, or if you had it but chose not to send your Sim. Then on graduation your Sims aged right up to adult, no muss no fuss.
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I don't know if it just me, but maybe the person driving the boat now actually knows what a sims game should be hence when taking over the reins from you know who.....made it a top priority to steer it in the right direction, starting with toddlers. While the engine as a whole does have some limitations with regards to implementing content or features we were used to....I kinda see them now trying to squeeze stuff back in (watered down though), but never the less returning.
I think this game has been a steep learning curve for the development team with regards of "what NOT to do" with a sims game, and going forward , I think when we get Ts5, core features that should be present in a base game will be there at launch, unless... they want to burn their hands and arms......like they burnt their fingers with Ts4...
I hope they have played attention lol
Though thinking of it back in the days of Ts3 when WA was released...people complained the game was turning into a click and point RPG and did not like the direction it was taking and did not agree with that guy (somebody...Humble?) vision, well he jumped ship and the direction of Ts3 started to change back to a more traditional sims experience. I see the same happening now.....though its took what...3 years?
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Conspiracy theory time...
What if EA marketing knew full well that TS4 would have disappointing sales from the start and chose to rip toddlers and other things out of the game to release them to players piecemeal and keep up the hype (they kept toddlers back for when TS4 hype and sales were really dropping)?
The reason I used the word "dodge" is because she was being asked questions she couldn't directly answer. I don't know if we "knew" that at the time or not for sure, 100%, but I'm pretty sure it was relatively clear even at that point that they can't talk about future content. Heck, they can't say much of anything.
Who is to blame for that? Probably someone at the top and I don't mean RF.
I don't know what there is about telemetry to not believe. That's the thing about those kind of answers. They are ambiguous. I don't think she said anything about how popular toddlers actually are in telemetry (at least, not in that interview... I can't find a word about it). She just gave a non-answer about how players play in different ways and how they have a variety of ways to gather information. Again, what is she going to say? "One of the biggest franchises in video game history, we left out a life stage that a lot of our fans really want, but we're working on it I mean, we can't talk about it. So, uh, we left it out, but you know... well... future content... um... TELEMETRY."
This thing about elders that you're referring to must be from some other interview, cause I can't find it in that one.
Anyway, I think we're just going to have to disagree on the point about "was it the right choice." I don't see how it's an open question at all. This is putting RF in a position where she is supposed to be maintaining the company's positive image and it's a trap. Yes means "I hate toddlers." No means "one of the biggest franchises in video game history (and probably one of EA's most reliable money maker PC games" made a major mistake. Also, buy our packs."
It probably sounds like I'm defending her, but honestly, I'm mostly arguing this on the logic of it at this point. That logic being that on further assessment, the interview seems to have been a pretty large PR blunder and it wasn't entirely RF's fault.
The thing is, it's easy to put it all on her and maybe if you asked her, she'd say it should be on her because that's part of her job. But I seriously doubt she's the one who constructed the policy about radio silence.
As for this thing about ridicule, I'm sorry that happened to you, but I don't know what to tell you, aside from that. I really have no interest in getting into some thing about the history of this forum. I just found it compelling that I saw the interview in a different light than I had before and I thought I would share that point; that maybe it would be interesting to some people.
Believe me, I'm no stranger to get all over corporate nonsense. But I do get wary about particular people being targeted, when it seems that they may not be the villain they are portrayed as. Getting on a corporation's case is one thing. Getting on a person's case is a whole other thing.
if you want to avoid that, then
either you should start playing a game first after the development is closed
or start it with the premiss of fleeting quality, lasting only for a month, if you can't accept that, then there is just the first option
1. If they knew that TS4 would have disappointing sales then they would have told both EA's top and the developers to make the game different.
2. They are educated and paid to try to get as high sales numbers as possible.
3. Their future salaries and bonuses are probably very dependent on the sales numbers for all EA's games.
The only thing that could have influenced them just a little was that they of course wanted TS3 and its expansions to still sell well too. Therefore they wanted TS4 to be as different from TS3 as possible within reasonable limits. Toddlers were clearly dropped from the basegame for reasons which most likely were:
1. To make it possible to finish the basegame before the deadline and within the budget.
2. TS4 was planned to focus more on happy partying and less on family play to make it different from TS3. Therefore babies, toddlers, children and teens were seen as less important than they were for the previous games. Who would want to bring toddlers to parties or dates anyway?
But the hype about toddlers must have become much more permanent and loud than the marketing department in their wildest dreams had expected. This is the only possible explanation why the developers suddenly a few months ago were told to resume their work on toddlers because it would have been both cheaper and better to release toddlers at least 18 months ago. EA's marketing department would never have preferred to release toddlers this late and thereby accepted the extra expenses and all the bad talk about the missing toddlers in all those months if EA had planned to release toddlers at all.
There is plenty of blame to go around including it's player base. As far as telemetry goes, I turn that type of information off on any game that has it. I always have and always will. Maxis knows people do this and that it's not a true representation on what people want, use , or whatever in their games. Telemetry from Ts3 didn't tell them that people wanted the game to be an online mmo, have no open world, no CASt, no CAW, limitations at every turn, teens to be identical to YA, and didn't tell them that we wanted babies to be objects. That was nothing more than an excuse since there are things they just can't tell you.
Like I said before, it was a step in the right direction and toddlers were well done, so kudos to them for that. That was no small update and I'm sure they have been working on it for quite some time, not just the last few months like someone mentioned.
http://store.thesims3.com/myWishlist.html?persona=NerdyMcNerdPants
That interview infuriates me... it's nothing but a big F * U * in the face to all the Sims players. I'm not even a Family player and the attitude taken by Franklin and EA was so insulting. Just reading this again solidifies my reason not to buy anything else for TS4.
So yeah, I think there are definitely some teams that are working in the right direction now, but the EP team needs to get its act together. Especially because EPs are where big systems and overarching gameplay gets added, I think that it will be hard for things to improve without them getting better. But then again, toddlers were a pretty big update, so maybe if the free content team is allowed to tackle other parts of the base game system and lifestages and give them the same in-depth treatment, then we might be able to see some real improvement in the core game.
In the end I think it's still too early to tell, but I do believe it's a good sign and I am much more hopeful than I was before the update, which is why I'm bothering to be here on the forums talking about it at all, as I'd previously given up on the game.
And honestly, I think from her perspective, it was a good decision... they were able to find time for toddlers down the road and make a really fleshed out version that a lot of people are very happy with. At the time, calling it a good decision sounded bad because we didn't and couldn't know toddlers were on the list, but that's the tricky thing about perspective and it's a trap I see game types fall into a lot because they're into games by trade, not politics; they aren't used to all the traps that get set, or traps that aren't even set by anyone, but exist anyway. It's easy to forget that the words coming out of your mouth may look completely different, depending on the amount of information available to you.
Do you have an actual source for that timeframe or is it just conjecture? Because I haven't seen anything to suggest the gurus just suddenly started working on toddlers 'a few months ago' on some whim of new management or marketing. Here's what one guru said right after the toddler patch release:
What you say about telemetry in fact is exactly how I feel about it. I'm sure there was some telemetry, but I can't imagine it was anywhere near reliable. First of all loads of players played TS3 offline and second, what would those figures say anyway. That people didn't like playing that life stage or that they weren't that interested in playing the features attached to the life stage? I do agree with you by the way it wasn't all RF's fault, that's not how things work in large companies.
The ridicule thing didn't happen to me, I was merely an observer. It happened to everyone who wanted to reach out to EA and tell them they still missed toddlers in the game. And what they'd like to see if they would be added. And in fact a lot of what I saw passing by in those threads is used, EA did listen.
Then they dropped toddlers as Rachel Franklin explained. She was a little clumsy in the way she expressed it as "being the best decision at all" because she shouldn't have done that if she couldn't tell us why she thought that. But I am sure that it was because otherwise they would have had to ask EA for more money and time to finish the basegame or to drop something else which EA didn't want them to drop (like the multitasking or the children age group).
With a normal full team toddlers couldn't have taken more than at most 6 months to make. So if it took longer time than that then it was because they only used a small fraction of a normal team to make them or because they didn't work on them at all for many months. The toddlers didn't require more work than the children, the teens or the young adults. So if toddlers really required almost three years to make than they couldn't have made a full basegame for TS2, TS3 or TS4 even in 10 years. Therefore I know that they didn't work full time on toddlers. Maybe they had a small team of 3 or 4 developers working on them all the time. But I find that unlikely too because it was obvious that it would have been much better to just finish the toddlers fast so they could have been released at least 18 months ago. Therefore I am still convinced that it wasn't EA's plan to release them at all when they were dropped for the basegame. But this means that nobody worked on toddlers until EA decided to make toddlers anyway because people continued with much more hype about them than EA had expected. When this decision was taken I don't see why EA should decide to only have so tiny a team working on them that it would take years to finish them?
If you note the post made by Ninja about how their work environment is (I don't have it on hand, but the rough paraphrase is, "We work on packs that we want to work on and on the packs that need the most attention") you can guess that the toddler work probably wasn't all that focused for a while and I don't think there's some EA overlord that had much to do with it. A lot of work environments are clear-cut, top-down, management tells you what to do and you do it. Theirs seems to have a bit more flexibility in encouraging them to work on the things that are the most compelling to them when the opportunity arises.
It's a little reminiscent of how Valve does things, when I read about it years ago.
So I don't see any basis for believing that toddlers were ever not a priority, especially considering that a guru said they were from the beginning. Keep in mind that if they were firm on making toddlers free and on making toddlers really good, that meant they couldn't just grab a block of paid pack time and hammer out amazing toddlers. They probably had to work it into the blocks of time that allow them to put out free updates and it's clear those blocks are few and far between (not to mention the fact that we had a number of those updates happen anyway). And even then, I'm sure they were pushing it a bit in terms of scheduling, with perhaps a little justification for time spent gambling on the idea that adding really good toddlers would make some extra pack sales.
In the main, I think the factor you're missing more than anything is the fact that they were putting out toddlers for free to those who own the game. Charity doesn't make for a good quarterly report. So naturally, it would be hard for them to simply push aside paid content to get toddlers down.
You realize you had 3 parts before too though, don't you? EPs, SPs, and store content. Dividing this game up in small bits is kinda ... the whole sims philosophy.
I'm still not convinced she was going to add them at that time, it still really doesn't sound like that to me. But I'm not her so I can't possibly know. But are you seriously saying she wasn't prepared to receive the one question she'd been receiving from the get go? Yeah no, I don't believe that.
Your interpretation would remind me of a student who told that his/her class had discussed the subjects that the class should be taught and because the teacher had been only a minority the majority (the students) had decided to change the subjects for the teaching and therefore the teacher had just couldn't do anything but to do it. We both know that this isn't how it works.
EA's CEO is paid about $20 million a year in salary and bonuses. So do you really think that he gets all that money just for telling all EA's game studios that they can just make the game like they want and to add expansions like they want??
EA was started as a publisher who only marketed and sold games made by other companies. This was the way EA worked for almost 10 years until EA in 1990 began to buy the companies that made the game because many of those companies were struggling and EA still needed their games to market and sell. The developers often hated it because they had to work much harder under EA and couldn't make their own decisions as they were used to. But EA continued to buy 5 to 10 such companies every year and in some cases the developers left because they didn't even be paid for overtime.
At some point it seems that this changed. I don't know exactly when. But at some time (likely after year 2000) I think that EA changed the hourly wages to salaries and bonuses such that the employees felt more like a team and didn't mind the overtime because they were all paid more if their games and EA were more successful. They learned to think more as "we" and less as "I" because they all got paid more if EA earned more.
Therefore it is difficult to interpret the word "we" when a developer says it. The same developer says "we have been working on toddlers", "we made City Living", "we made the SP", "we made the GP" and so on. But did this developer really work in all those teams? I don't think so.
Such a developer also says "we didn't know how to release toddlers". But was this really a decision which should be made by the developers? I don't think so because it almost certainly was a decision which should be made by EA's marketing department. There just is one problem here: Rachel Franklin was both the executive senior producer of the Sims games, the leader of Maxis and a person which was educated in marketing. So she was probably also involved in decisions about the marketing along with other marketing experts in EA until she left in September 2016 and Samantha Ryan became the leader of both Maxis, EA Mobile and Bioware. But EA isn't a democracy where all the developers just discuss and votes about which games to make and how to make them. The bosses make such decisions after advice from the people who are most suited to advice them - and those people clearly are the marketing experts. (Game designers design the games according to EA's orders and rules, producers supervise the production of the games and programmers and artists just make the games.)
So does "we" said by a developer mean "my current team", "Maxis" or "EA"? I am not sure and I don't even think that "we" always mean the same thing in all discussions. I am quite sure though that "we decided" doesn't always mean the this developer have to always having been personally engaged in the decision because it just seems to mean that this developer is loyal to the company and the decision.
(She/her)
Who knows what they were thinking? The game seemed rather rushed. You could easily come up with a ton of scenarios about what went down. Missing toddlers caused a lot of discontent from the begining.
Giving them for free was a good pl an of action. Firstly they should have been in the game from the begining. They are a life stage. Secondly, if they tried to make us pay for them, it would have set off a revolution. No one would ever trust them again. Some would have bought them, but I imagine the underlying resentment would still be there.
Apparently pl an = plum. Smh.
Also imagine the programming nightmare for having to account for one group having toddlers and another group not having them, when it comes to adding supernatural life states -- which is possibly why we got the toddlers now before the vampire pack dropped, to avoid having to patch in age-up code later (or to have it sitting dormant for players to discover). In Sims 2 it wasn't an issue because the young adult lifestage was limited to University -- if you didn't have University you aged right up to adult, or if you had it but chose not to send your Sim. Then on graduation your Sims aged right up to adult, no muss no fuss.
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
I think this game has been a steep learning curve for the development team with regards of "what NOT to do" with a sims game, and going forward , I think when we get Ts5, core features that should be present in a base game will be there at launch, unless... they want to burn their hands and arms......like they burnt their fingers with Ts4...
I hope they have played attention lol
Though thinking of it back in the days of Ts3 when WA was released...people complained the game was turning into a click and point RPG and did not like the direction it was taking and did not agree with that guy (somebody...Humble?) vision, well he jumped ship and the direction of Ts3 started to change back to a more traditional sims experience. I see the same happening now.....though its took what...3 years?