Finally I was wondering what kind of questions we can ask here...can we give suggestions too? Or ask about what would be technically feasible (eg. A difficulty slider)?
Any as long as it isn't tied to asking about future content (i.e. Toddlers, content packs, etc) you are welcome to give suggestions or to ask questions if something is technically feasible (with the exception of asking about lifestages.)
--I've only answered these two for now as it is the end of my work day but I'll be filtering out the remaining questions to those SimGurus who are able to give answers
If your questions has a strike through I have either answered in your post why or part of it related to a topic that we cannot discuss.
Comments removed in their entirety were either off-topic or fell into the "could not be answered / future content" area.
How do genetics work in TS4? Like exactly how do they work? Are there recessive and dominant genes or is it random? Are you aware that babies are not coherent sometimes with the parents "dna"?
I see so much time and energy on these forums devoted to all of the would have/should have/will we ever have debates and fights, that often times, one of the things that gets lost in the din is the fixing stuff that is already in the game.
Culling. The main thing recently being culling and the wacky stuff that happens with relationships. From the team's point of view, is culling and relationships currently working as intended? If so, why, because, to many, many players, it is not. If the team thinks it is and players believe it is not, is there any room for a middle ground and/or compromise? Or would the team consider removing culling altogether? If it's not working as intended, where is it currently in the process and what steps are being planned to address culling and relationships?
Musical Chairs. Another big one for me is the musical chairs thing- it's been an issue since launch and it persists to this day. Is this feature currently working as intended? if not, where is it in the process and what steps are being planned to address it? Or is it just a thing that we will have to live with? If so, why?
Emotions. To many on the forums, myself included, the emotion system is really out of whack because there are so many powerful moodlets to promote "positive" moods (I lump happy, flirty, energetic, etc... into this category) that the poor "negative" moods never stand a chance. My grandmother just died, but, hey! That's a really cute painting! Right now, this is addressed by those that are bothered by it through a series of mods. Are emotions currently working as intended? if not, where are they in the process and what steps are being planned to address them?
Zoning. Is there any way to make it so that zoning into a lot doesn't spawn you with ten other people on the sidewalk next to you? Or is this just the price that is paid for having a Closed World?
Grouping There is nothing more annoying than trying to take your girl out on a date in the park only to have almost literally every other sim on the lot come butting in to interact with you. It seriously makes me feel like Truman from the Truman Show (and not in a good way). Is anyone looking at changing the way interactions work within the Sims 4 to mitigate this from happening?
Weddings. For the love of Pete, can someone please take a look at the way weddings work in The Sims 4? It's like wrangling cats with ADhD.
Mostly, there's so many little things that could be tweeked in the game already- and sooooooo many incredible possible solutions to these problems that have been written on by members of this community, ad nauseam, that, honestly, if we could get a back and forth dialogue of what is within the Art of the Possible with fixing things that are already in the game, you'd never hear me say the "T" word again.
How do genetics work in TS4? Like exactly how do they work? Are there recessive and dominant genes or is it random? Are you aware that babies are not coherent sometimes with the parents "dna"?
Awesome question! I've got two blue-eyed parents who keep having brown-eyed babies, it kind of annoys me. But their grandfather had brown eyes, so ... are genetics influenced by the grandparents as well, or is this just a fancy bug?
Ok what is the Sims 4 Vision entails and what does you rule really mean? I really would like to know a little more on the vision so I could get a better understanding of the game.
How do genetics work in TS4? Like exactly how do they work? Are there recessive and dominant genes or is it random? Are you aware that babies are not coherent sometimes with the parents "dna"?
Awesome question! I've got two blue-eyed parents who keep having brown-eyed babies, it kind of annoys me. But their grandfather had brown eyes, so ... are genetics influenced by the grandparents as well, or is this just a fancy bug?
If it was real life that wouldn't be possible, people with blue eyes don't have the gene for brown eyes because that's a dominant gene. Both parents have to have two recessive blue eye genes for them to have blue eyes. The contrary though, is possible, two parents with brown eyes having blue eyed or green eyed kids. Green eyes aren't 100% linear though as it's a mix of colour genes.
How much devs does The Sims 4 have versus how many devs did The Sims 3 have?
Probably can't answer this (as it's kind of a future content question, but not a The Sims 4 question lol), but will there ever be a The Sims 4 spin off, like The Sims Medieval that was The Sims 3 spin off and The Sims Stories for The Sims 2. Started let's playing spin offs recently and remembered just how much I've missed them
How do genetics work in TS4? Like exactly how do they work? Are there recessive and dominant genes or is it random? Are you aware that babies are not coherent sometimes with the parents "dna"?
Awesome question! I've got two blue-eyed parents who keep having brown-eyed babies, it kind of annoys me. But their grandfather had brown eyes, so ... are genetics influenced by the grandparents as well, or is this just a fancy bug?
If it was real life that wouldn't be possible, people with blue eyes don't have brown eye gene because brown eyes are dominant. Both parents have to have two recessive blue eye genes for them to have blue eyes. The contrary though, is possible, two parents with brown eyes having blue eyed or green eyed kids. Green eyes aren't 100% linear as it's a mix of colour genes.
How do genetics work in TS4? Like exactly how do they work? Are there recessive and dominant genes or is it random? Are you aware that babies are not coherent sometimes with the parents "dna"?
Awesome question! I've got two blue-eyed parents who keep having brown-eyed babies, it kind of annoys me. But their grandfather had brown eyes, so ... are genetics influenced by the grandparents as well, or is this just a fancy bug?
If it was real life that wouldn't be possible, people with blue eyes don't have brown eye gene because brown eyes are dominant. Both parents have to have two recessive blue eye genes for them to have blue eyes. The contrary though, is possible, two parents with brown eyes having blue eyed or green eyed kids. Green eyes aren't 100% linear though as it's a mix of colour genes.
Ah thanks for that little explanation haha. I get things like that mixed up all the time. But alright, real biology aside, I'd still like to know if in sims biology this could be a thing ^^
Is it possible to use some of the same coding in this game as you used in other games of the sims? Why or why not? I was wondering this, as the sims 2 has so many good animations that the sims 4 could benefit from, like slow dancing that I thought if you could use some of those animations, would it be easier to implement them into the game?
I am also wondering for us simmers who have all the packs for the sims 1 and cannot install it on windows 10 will you be allowing us to have a digital download as you did for the sims 2 so that we can play it again. I would love to be able to play the games with my same sims in order 1,2,3,4. (if 3 plays OK for me that is. )
Did any of your artists ever experimented with body hair on sims with the current art style? Would it work/look ok?
If we ever do it for real, it will definitely need some exploration like different thicknesses of hair, where is the hair located, and such. Translating photo references to our style can be quite the challenge! Just for fun, I tried drawing body hair in our art style once, and I gotta say... it is hard. lol.
Thank you for doing something like this so that we can have better communication!
For my question... Let's see...
For people who work on art and/or modeling, where do you draw inspiration from for the CASsets that you create? Do you look through fashion magazines? Through pictures of clothing people have modeled related to that theme? Or do you just let them develop as you work, eventually finding something that sticks and build off of that?
So at the start of a theme development for a pack, the art director shares their vision of how the pack will look like to the concept artists. Say for example, Get Together... We knew we wanted a European world, so the concept artists look up references that we can pull inspiration from. It can be anything from magazines, books, fashion blogs, instagram, pinterest, etc. For CAS, we would draw A LOT of concepts ranging from 30 to over 100 concepts (depending on the pack). We would try to hit different age groups and different trends that fit into the pack's theme. During that time, the art director would go through and pick out what they like, what fits into the theme, what fills any missing holes in the catalogue. When selections are done, we pass the concept art off to modeling. I hope that answers your question!
Thanks for creating this thread! It's a very good idea! I hope it contributes to a more positive environment around here.
I was wondering how long does it usually take for you to create a stuff pack / game pack / expansion pack (from concept to release)? What are the factors that influence timing? Are delays common?
Also I was wondering why developing EPs seems to take longer with Ts4 than with TS3 or TS2. Is it a matter of resources? (Perhaps the former EP team has divided into EP and GP) or is it because you work with more flexible deadlines? Is it a matter of marketing perhaps (so that Gps and EPs don't overlap)?
Finally I was wondering what kind of questions we can ask here...can we give suggestions too? Or ask about what would be technically feasible (eg. A difficulty slider)?
1) How long it "usually takes" can actually vary quite a bit. An EP, from idea to release, is somewhere around a year (give or take a few months); a GP, from idea to release, is closer to 9 months or so and an SP from idea to release is anywhere from 6 months to a year (depending on what other things we're working on). Now something like a Nanny NPC, might be a month or two in the works where something like the Create A Sim Expansion was over a year. It's actually pretty uncommon that we delay unless something entirely unexpected occurs. Keep in mind that a lot has to happen between idea and release. Nearly 2/3 any project is spent planning, designing and then making sure it all works after we've built it.
2) Why do EPs take longer? Resources certainly play a part in how long our packs take to create. We have the team split into parts supporting EP, GP, SP, Updates, & Live Services (fixing existing issues, gallery, stuff like that). The team is not structured the same way it was for TS3. On TS3 almost the entire team was focused on an EP, then when they finished would move to the next EP. The SPs had no gameplay so very few people had to work on them. Because TS4 is a constantly growing and changing Live Service through updates and packs, we've changed the way the team is structured quite a lot. We still run a very similar PROCESS to make games but we're running it against many more packs/projects at one time. On TS3 we sometimes had maybe 2 things being actively WORKED ON (code being written, art being built); but usually we focused on 1 at a time. On TS4, we're often working on 5 or 6 different things at once and planning 2 or 3 more. Marketing plays a much larger part in when we announce and discuss things.
3) I believe you can ask whatever you want! And there is a whole section of the forums for suggestions. I probably wont' dive too deep into technical issues but you're always welcome to ask.
Thank you for doing something like this so that we can have better communication!
For my question... Let's see...
For people who work on art and/or modeling, where do you draw inspiration from for the CASsets that you create? Do you look through fashion magazines? Through pictures of clothing people have modeled related to that theme? Or do you just let them develop as you work, eventually finding something that sticks and build off of that?
Ooh! I like this one! I'd also like to know, are the concept artists inspired by recent trends or that of years past?
We try to stay on top of trends ;P but it really depends on the pack theme and what's the need. Also we want to make sure we have a variety of CAS assets so that way if you want to make a particular type of sim, you can. Like granny with the cat cardigan, or a teen wearing a tied tee (with a boat neckline) with a jeggings for example.
That is, to me at least, one scary looking list. I'm in awe of your organisational skills. I've actually been curious since you said the forums aren't the majority of your job. Just never thought I'd get the opportunity to ask.
In the same vein, with that scary looking list, what do you do in your down time?
Oh boy...well in my downtime I normally don't play too many games (at least now a days) but I will play things like Stardew Valley or Dark Cloud 2. I play TS4 a bit during the weekend but since I spend so much time with it during the week I like to decompress with other stuff like drawing illustrations, doing graphic design, playing around with coding websites, blogging, making youtube videos, cross stitching, reading, etc. I also LOVE watching Korean Dramas, they are probably my favorite thing to watch while I work on cross stitching or drawings.
Forgot to add: Pokemon is my go-to game (whether its Pokemon Go or one of the handheld games) if I just want to play something. My boyfriend jokes around that he will know if I've had a particularly stressful day if I start cross stitching and I finish more than two pieces before bed lol.
Just wanted to say PLEASE allow us to assign family relationships when we're making our families. I'd love to start off a couple as married, or as brother and sister, but it's impossible. Thanks.
How many development stages do you have for The Sims 4 packs? Do you make a lot of conceptual art?
Oh so many stages! We actually do make quite a lot of concept art for our worlds, furniture, clothes, UI... I love reviewing art, it's one of my favorite things to do.
In brief our stages look something like this. This is definitely a high level abstract but gives you an idea.
Theme Selection - brainstorms, sometimes concept, sometimes prototypes, looking at past research or current discussions, talking about what the players are asking for or need
Pre-Production - design writing, reviewing designs with the team to figure out how we'll build it, figuring out how to build the right things with the time we have allotted; more concept
Production - making stuff and starting to test it, writing code, building models, integrating art assets, writing text, and more!
Alpha* - a version of everything we planned against is in the game so we can start playing with it
Beta* - our first attempt at fixing ALL the issues we've found with what we've built, playing with the first pass game balance on all our features to make sure it feels good, making sure the game is running well on high and low machines, making sure we haven't introduced any issues to previous packs or to the base game, making sure we didn't miss anything important
Final* - last big push to making sure the game is as solid, stable and awesome as we can possibly make it
Release - we deliver it to you, in the wild!
Live Support - monitor what pops up and address it when possible
Overall, we spend roughly 1/4 of a pack's schedule planning and preparing; 1/3 of the time building and the remainder bringing it all together and getting it to you.
Now, this can change a lot. Some types of projects spend more time building or less time in final or less time in planning. It depends on the nature of the project. Overall though, our schedules always look about like this.
There are also a lot of other deadlines along the way like Art Lock (when all assets are build & final); Text Lock (so we can send text out to be translated & tested); Audio Lock (when all music and sounds are in the game); and some more.
* You might find different definitions of Alpha/Beta/Final Online. This is how we use them. Beta for us is not the same as a "Beta Test" for something else.
Comments
I'm going to close the thread to go through the ones currently asked
I love hot coco (with just two marshmellows) --I actually don't drink coffee and I'm trying to find a tea flavor that works for me.
Any as long as it isn't tied to asking about future content (i.e. Toddlers, content packs, etc) you are welcome to give suggestions or to ask questions if something is technically feasible (with the exception of asking about lifestages.)
--I've only answered these two for now as it is the end of my work day but I'll be filtering out the remaining questions to those SimGurus who are able to give answers
If your questions has a strike through I have either answered in your post why or part of it related to a topic that we cannot discuss.
Comments removed in their entirety were either off-topic or fell into the "could not be answered / future content" area.
Culling. The main thing recently being culling and the wacky stuff that happens with relationships. From the team's point of view, is culling and relationships currently working as intended? If so, why, because, to many, many players, it is not. If the team thinks it is and players believe it is not, is there any room for a middle ground and/or compromise? Or would the team consider removing culling altogether? If it's not working as intended, where is it currently in the process and what steps are being planned to address culling and relationships?
Musical Chairs. Another big one for me is the musical chairs thing- it's been an issue since launch and it persists to this day. Is this feature currently working as intended? if not, where is it in the process and what steps are being planned to address it? Or is it just a thing that we will have to live with? If so, why?
Emotions. To many on the forums, myself included, the emotion system is really out of whack because there are so many powerful moodlets to promote "positive" moods (I lump happy, flirty, energetic, etc... into this category) that the poor "negative" moods never stand a chance. My grandmother just died, but, hey! That's a really cute painting! Right now, this is addressed by those that are bothered by it through a series of mods. Are emotions currently working as intended? if not, where are they in the process and what steps are being planned to address them?
Zoning. Is there any way to make it so that zoning into a lot doesn't spawn you with ten other people on the sidewalk next to you? Or is this just the price that is paid for having a Closed World?
Grouping There is nothing more annoying than trying to take your girl out on a date in the park only to have almost literally every other sim on the lot come butting in to interact with you. It seriously makes me feel like Truman from the Truman Show (and not in a good way). Is anyone looking at changing the way interactions work within the Sims 4 to mitigate this from happening?
Weddings. For the love of Pete, can someone please take a look at the way weddings work in The Sims 4? It's like wrangling cats with ADhD.
Mostly, there's so many little things that could be tweeked in the game already- and sooooooo many incredible possible solutions to these problems that have been written on by members of this community, ad nauseam, that, honestly, if we could get a back and forth dialogue of what is within the Art of the Possible with fixing things that are already in the game, you'd never hear me say the "T" word again.
Spy Games - A Sims 4 Story
Parker's Way - A Sims 4 Story
Awesome question! I've got two blue-eyed parents who keep having brown-eyed babies, it kind of annoys me. But their grandfather had brown eyes, so ... are genetics influenced by the grandparents as well, or is this just a fancy bug?
If it was real life that wouldn't be possible, people with blue eyes don't have the gene for brown eyes because that's a dominant gene. Both parents have to have two recessive blue eye genes for them to have blue eyes. The contrary though, is possible, two parents with brown eyes having blue eyed or green eyed kids. Green eyes aren't 100% linear though as it's a mix of colour genes.
or longer
sorry for my bad english:p
Probably can't answer this (as it's kind of a future content question, but not a The Sims 4 question lol), but will there ever be a The Sims 4 spin off, like The Sims Medieval that was The Sims 3 spin off and The Sims Stories for The Sims 2. Started let's playing spin offs recently and remembered just how much I've missed them
edited because my reading comprehension failed.
Spy Games - A Sims 4 Story
Parker's Way - A Sims 4 Story
Ah thanks for that little explanation haha. I get things like that mixed up all the time. But alright, real biology aside, I'd still like to know if in sims biology this could be a thing ^^
I am also wondering for us simmers who have all the packs for the sims 1 and cannot install it on windows 10 will you be allowing us to have a digital download as you did for the sims 2 so that we can play it again. I would love to be able to play the games with my same sims in order 1,2,3,4. (if 3 plays OK for me that is. )
If we ever do it for real, it will definitely need some exploration like different thicknesses of hair, where is the hair located, and such. Translating photo references to our style can be quite the challenge! Just for fun, I tried drawing body hair in our art style once, and I gotta say... it is hard. lol.
So at the start of a theme development for a pack, the art director shares their vision of how the pack will look like to the concept artists. Say for example, Get Together... We knew we wanted a European world, so the concept artists look up references that we can pull inspiration from. It can be anything from magazines, books, fashion blogs, instagram, pinterest, etc. For CAS, we would draw A LOT of concepts ranging from 30 to over 100 concepts (depending on the pack). We would try to hit different age groups and different trends that fit into the pack's theme. During that time, the art director would go through and pick out what they like, what fits into the theme, what fills any missing holes in the catalogue. When selections are done, we pass the concept art off to modeling. I hope that answers your question!
Hi! @SimGuruDrake asked me to pop on by!
1) How long it "usually takes" can actually vary quite a bit. An EP, from idea to release, is somewhere around a year (give or take a few months); a GP, from idea to release, is closer to 9 months or so and an SP from idea to release is anywhere from 6 months to a year (depending on what other things we're working on). Now something like a Nanny NPC, might be a month or two in the works where something like the Create A Sim Expansion was over a year. It's actually pretty uncommon that we delay unless something entirely unexpected occurs. Keep in mind that a lot has to happen between idea and release. Nearly 2/3 any project is spent planning, designing and then making sure it all works after we've built it.
2) Why do EPs take longer? Resources certainly play a part in how long our packs take to create. We have the team split into parts supporting EP, GP, SP, Updates, & Live Services (fixing existing issues, gallery, stuff like that). The team is not structured the same way it was for TS3. On TS3 almost the entire team was focused on an EP, then when they finished would move to the next EP. The SPs had no gameplay so very few people had to work on them. Because TS4 is a constantly growing and changing Live Service through updates and packs, we've changed the way the team is structured quite a lot. We still run a very similar PROCESS to make games but we're running it against many more packs/projects at one time. On TS3 we sometimes had maybe 2 things being actively WORKED ON (code being written, art being built); but usually we focused on 1 at a time. On TS4, we're often working on 5 or 6 different things at once and planning 2 or 3 more. Marketing plays a much larger part in when we announce and discuss things.
3) I believe you can ask whatever you want! And there is a whole section of the forums for suggestions. I probably wont' dive too deep into technical issues but you're always welcome to ask.
We try to stay on top of trends ;P but it really depends on the pack theme and what's the need. Also we want to make sure we have a variety of CAS assets so that way if you want to make a particular type of sim, you can. Like granny with the cat cardigan, or a teen wearing a tied tee (with a boat neckline) with a jeggings for example.
Theo♥
We do the work for TS4 Mac internally.
Oh boy...well in my downtime I normally don't play too many games (at least now a days) but I will play things like Stardew Valley or Dark Cloud 2. I play TS4 a bit during the weekend but since I spend so much time with it during the week I like to decompress with other stuff like drawing illustrations, doing graphic design, playing around with coding websites, blogging, making youtube videos, cross stitching, reading, etc. I also LOVE watching Korean Dramas, they are probably my favorite thing to watch while I work on cross stitching or drawings.
Forgot to add: Pokemon is my go-to game (whether its Pokemon Go or one of the handheld games) if I just want to play something. My boyfriend jokes around that he will know if I've had a particularly stressful day if I start cross stitching and I finish more than two pieces before bed lol.
Was the right answer - thanks for the clarification
Oh so many stages! We actually do make quite a lot of concept art for our worlds, furniture, clothes, UI... I love reviewing art, it's one of my favorite things to do.
In brief our stages look something like this. This is definitely a high level abstract but gives you an idea.
Theme Selection - brainstorms, sometimes concept, sometimes prototypes, looking at past research or current discussions, talking about what the players are asking for or need
Pre-Production - design writing, reviewing designs with the team to figure out how we'll build it, figuring out how to build the right things with the time we have allotted; more concept
Production - making stuff and starting to test it, writing code, building models, integrating art assets, writing text, and more!
Alpha* - a version of everything we planned against is in the game so we can start playing with it
Beta* - our first attempt at fixing ALL the issues we've found with what we've built, playing with the first pass game balance on all our features to make sure it feels good, making sure the game is running well on high and low machines, making sure we haven't introduced any issues to previous packs or to the base game, making sure we didn't miss anything important
Final* - last big push to making sure the game is as solid, stable and awesome as we can possibly make it
Release - we deliver it to you, in the wild!
Live Support - monitor what pops up and address it when possible
Overall, we spend roughly 1/4 of a pack's schedule planning and preparing; 1/3 of the time building and the remainder bringing it all together and getting it to you.
Now, this can change a lot. Some types of projects spend more time building or less time in final or less time in planning. It depends on the nature of the project. Overall though, our schedules always look about like this.
There are also a lot of other deadlines along the way like Art Lock (when all assets are build & final); Text Lock (so we can send text out to be translated & tested); Audio Lock (when all music and sounds are in the game); and some more.
* You might find different definitions of Alpha/Beta/Final Online. This is how we use them. Beta for us is not the same as a "Beta Test" for something else.