I am curious about this situation: if our sims hear loud noises from neighbour apartment because they are having a party, when our sims knock on the door and actually enter that apartment after loading, will there still be the party actively taking place? I hope @SimGuruEugi you can answer this one. Thank you in advance and have an awesim day
True. Obviously I'm not a guru. Just trying to help where I can. It's probably like everything else... a matter of time and priorities (i.e. it technically could be done given enough time and effort, but they chose to focus on other aspects of the EP).
Also, I do think Daniel's tweets have a good point, even if it's not explicitly stated. If we could build our own apartments, they would have to think about changing the build mode restrictions. They would have to address questions like how many levels should be supported? Will build mode allow that many levels for every lot type, or only apartments? Could PCs on the lower end of the system requirements handle all the extra levels? And if they didn't change the build mode restrictions at all, I honestly think we would see the same level of lashback (and possible more). Apartments with only 3 levels? :( It's really a no-win situation for them.
Not saying I'm happy that we can't build our own (like I said, I would love that, and I'm sad that we can't), but I do understand that choosing not add this functionality probably solves a lot of concerns and potential issues.
Or maybe I'm wrong, and they are technically impossible for whatever reason, and Eugi can correct me there. I work in software development, so I see every day that most things are just a matter of time and priorites vs. deadlines. And as frustrating as that is, I guess I've just gotten used to it.
Levels weren't an issue in TS2 and TS3. I live in a city and apartments with 3 levels is pretty much the norm. A city isn't just downtown. The high rises are downtown, but just outside the down town area are huge amounts of 3 level apartments. And even in the down town area there are 3 level brown stone apartments. I actually preferred my custom 3 level flats in TS3 over the apartment shells. I could create what I wanted and it never got old because I could always create new apartments, plus they took advantage of the future content.
@SimGuruEugi something I REALLY want to know is, why can we no longer change the color of an inhabited bassinet? It's a little annoying having to discover what baby gender is incoming beforehand (to buy the color we want), when we used to be able to change the color on the fly. I would like to have that back, please.
With both gender twins+ I don't even bother. I bought a pink crib and a blue crib, and of COURSE, the boy ended up attached to the pink one and the girl to the blue one.
Can this be fixed?
edit: clarity
Not sure if you're opposed to mods, but there is one that turns the bassinet invisible so you can then place the baby in a CC crib.
@SimGuruEugi something I REALLY want to know is, why can we no longer change the color of an inhabited bassinet? It's a little annoying having to discover what baby gender is incoming beforehand (to buy the color we want), when we used to be able to change the color on the fly. I would like to have that back, please.
With both gender twins+ I don't even bother. I bought a pink crib and a blue crib, and of COURSE, the boy ended up attached to the pink one and the girl to the blue one.
Can this be fixed?
edit: clarity
Not sure if you're opposed to mods, but there is one that turns the bassinet invisible so you can then place the baby in a CC crib.
if that hapen ,when your sim take baby from basinet to feed pause game,go in buy mode sell cribs and place what you want. just one.than play,when they put writhe baby in krib go again in buy mode bu crib you want and they put other baby in crib you want
I have a couple of questions for the SimGurus about time:
Would it be possible to have the game keep track of what week a player is on within a save? I can't remember if the game did that in TS2 (if you switched around lots, they weren't in phase so it probably didn't), but it did in TS3. I suppose the festivals might help with that (if it's GeekCon again, it must be Week 10), depending on how regular they are.
The other question concerns clocks. I remember how delightful it was to discover that my Sim's wall clock actually told the in-game time in TS2. And TS3 clocks did the same. But the TS4 clocks are just decorations. I realize you can't do anything about the clocks we already have, but could future ones be functional? And maybe bring back alarm clocks?
@SimGuruEugi Will elevators be a build object we can use in lots in other worlds?
The elevators require an apartment shell to work properly. I do not believe they are available in the catalog.
So if I want a have a lift in my simple home Newcrest , can I not? What if I want a lift in the new spa of my city? Oh yeah , I can't! But what if I want a lift in my store of luxury items that have 4 FLOORS? Let me see ... I can't! STOP DOING EXPANSIONS IN WHICH MODDERS HAVE TO END YOUR SERVICE!
@SimGuruEugi Will elevators be a build object we can use in lots in other worlds?
The elevators require an apartment shell to work properly. I do not believe they are available in the catalog.
So if I want a have a lift in my simple home Newcrest , can I not? What if I want a lift in the new spa of my city? Oh yeah , I can't! But what if I want a lift in my store of luxury items that have 4 FLOORS? Let me see ... I can't! STOP DOING EXPANSIONS IN WHICH MODDERS HAVE TO END YOUR SERVICE!
I think there will be quite a few items that we won't find available in the build catalog. It's another curtailing of creativity for the players.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
@SimGuruEugi Will elevators be a build object we can use in lots in other worlds?
The elevators require an apartment shell to work properly. I do not believe they are available in the catalog.
So if I want a have a lift in my simple home Newcrest , can I not? What if I want a lift in the new spa of my city? Oh yeah , I can't! But what if I want a lift in my store of luxury items that have 4 FLOORS? Let me see ... I can't! STOP DOING EXPANSIONS IN WHICH MODDERS HAVE TO END YOUR SERVICE!
I think there will be quite a few items that we won't find available in the build catalog. It's another curtailing of creativity for the players.
This makes me really sick , the game is based on stories , right? And if the drug my story I want to tell my sim know the perfect guy in an elevator NOT STAY IN AN APARTMENT ?
Could people please keep this topic non-feedback? I don't want to lose it. It's stayed on topic since September 2014. There are loads of places you can complain. There's only this place where we can have this conversation with Maxis staff about how the mechanics work behind what we see on our own monitors as players.
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
True. Obviously I'm not a guru. Just trying to help where I can. It's probably like everything else... a matter of time and priorities (i.e. it technically could be done given enough time and effort, but they chose to focus on other aspects of the EP).
Also, I do think Daniel's tweets have a good point, even if it's not explicitly stated. If we could build our own apartments, they would have to think about changing the build mode restrictions. They would have to address questions like how many levels should be supported? Will build mode allow that many levels for every lot type, or only apartments? Could PCs on the lower end of the system requirements handle all the extra levels? And if they didn't change the build mode restrictions at all, I honestly think we would see the same level of lashback (and possible more). Apartments with only 3 levels? :( It's really a no-win situation for them.
Not saying I'm happy that we can't build our own (like I said, I would love that, and I'm sad that we can't), but I do understand that choosing not add this functionality probably solves a lot of concerns and potential issues.
Or maybe I'm wrong, and they are technically impossible for whatever reason, and Eugi can correct me there. I work in software development, so I see every day that most things are just a matter of time and priorites vs. deadlines. And as frustrating as that is, I guess I've just gotten used to it.
Levels weren't and issue in TS2 and TS3. I live in a city and apartments with 3 levels is pretty much the norm. A city isn't just downtown. The high rises are downtown, but just outside the down town area are huge amounts of 3 level apartments. And even in the down town area there are 3 level brown stone apartments. I actually preferred my custom 3 level flats in TS3 over the apartment shells. I could create what I wanted and it never got old because I could always create new apartments, plus they took advantage of the future content.
This is why I wish we would've at least gotten at least some type of apartment system that can be used anywhere, not just shells (even if the can be placed in future worlds). I live in the suburbs in a single story apartment and it only has 5 units. The biggest ones across the street are just 2 stories tall. They would've been a good fit in the areas like Willow Creek and the grassy part of Windenburg. Not sure if that's even possible, but I'm hoping something like that comes in a potential Uni EP
Could people please keep this topic non-feedback? I don't want to lose it. It's stayed on topic since September 2014. There are loads of places you can complain. There's only this place where we can have this conversation with Maxis staff about how the mechanics work behind what we see on our own monitors as players.
Thank you. You said this a lot nicer than I was about to.
@SimGuruEugi Thanks for all of your responses! This thread (and all the input from the other gurus) has been really eye opening. I have a quick question about worlds/regions if you don't mind. I enjoy reading around the Mods/CC Discussion board to see more about what's going on behind the scenes of mods, and I saw that @SimGuruModSquad, while showing a modder how worlds/regions/lots work showed that it is possible to move the Pendula View world (the world with the Goth lot) from Willow Creek region map onto the Newcrest region map.
Now, I don't know if there were any issues with that beyond it looking wrong aesthetically but that's part of my question, is it technically possible to patch in new worlds/neighbourhoods into regions? Because, and this may just be my personal misunderstanding, but it comes across from your previous replies as if the main issue with patching worlds is affecting already placed lots that players have used (which is completely sensible), but could you add new worlds with new lots? And not a Newcrest style region/world, a smaller world/region that can sit in on Willow Creek or Oasis Springs or Newcrest or even the regions added in EPs and GPs.
And, I know this second question may be pushing it but, if you could add new worlds & lots into already-released regions, could you make it so that world/neighbourhood has certain EP-specific functionality (such as, but not limited to, apartments) that is not available in the rest of the region/world? And could this be patched in too? All hypothetically of course.
The limitation I was talking about was about our ability to patch exiting lots by adding/removing objects and build buy structures. That data is defined in what you download, but only matters the first time you play. After you save your game, objects, walls, etc. become part of your save game. That's why we don't patch *those aspects* of worlds.
As for retrofitting worlds, it's partly a matter of fiction. We wanted San Myshuno to feel very unique, and we put all our world creation efforts there, rather than diving our attention and adding apartments to our suburban worlds.
Also, while I'm here, this is coming from a long time curiosity that I've never thought to ask about, what was the reason for not having the workplaces from Get to Work on a map and accessible to travel to? Because pregnant sims and their partners can travel to the hospital without issue and wander around and interact with everything and it's just something I've never fully understood really. I just think its a nice area and could make it easier for story-telling etc but I don't know. It's not a big issue, just seems odd if you don't know the reasoning behind it!
Anyways, thanks for the opportunity to ask these questions! Looking forward to City Living.
Those lots' purpose is to support the active careers they are associated with (and giving birth, for the hospital). If you were to travel there, but not as part of that flow, the venue might not work as you'd expect it to.
@SimGuruEugi, are you able to shed any light on the decision to confine apartments to San Myshunu and not allow the building of apartments from scratch? I think it would go far in helping players understand why these restrictions exist. Thanks!
You can think of an apartment building as a neighborhood. They are authored by our world creation team as part of the world we ship for the EP. (We actually can't patch worlds without invalidating saves).
If we had allowed the creation of apartment buildings from Build/Buy, we would not have been able to achieve the look we were going for. For instance, B/B limits construction to five floors, but you want buildings to look like they have many more than that, so you can look over the city skyline.
There are also performance implications. You might want a building to look like it has, say, hundreds of windows and small items of decor. If those were actual B/B objects, they would all count against our performance metrics.
We also allow multiple households to inhabit the same building. So we'd have to add some element that would have allowed players to define the boundaries of an apartment. If it wasn't properly authored (e.g. lacking front doors), some game functionality might not work.
So we reached what we think is a good compromise. We modeled "shells," which are apartment buildings that look great but are technically one object, and then we allowed B/B operations inside it.
I can answer more specific tech questions if you have any.
Ok @SimGuruEugi, can we delete the shells and say put different shells down and build all new apartments in this new sim world? I am currently building all my worlds as blank slates. What if I don't like a specific shell? Can I change it out for a different one?
Second, can I delete the entire "apartment" inside the building. Meaning start from scratch on the specific apartment space? All the walls? Or all the apartments given a certain type of space and you can only change let's say what is inside a 20x20 wall box. I'd be okay if we can wipe the "lots" within the buildings and start there from scratch.
You can't delete the shells from regular gameplay.
You can delete all the of an apartment's inside walls, and you can freely build on all apartments in a building.
@SimGuruEugi hi! First of all I wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.
I'd like to know something: do you think it would be possible (at least in theory) to give us more options for "away actions" (i.e. What our sims do off screen while another sim is visiting a community lot)? I think one of the biggest problems with loading screens is not the loading screens themselves but the fact that if eg you have a family of 4 (parents and 2 children) and decide to visit a community lot with the parents, the children who are left behind can't do anything meaningful such as homework or sleep. I know they can skill up and work on some of their relationships, and they can sleep if they are tending to their needs but it would be nice to have more control over what they do, so that when the other sims come back home they find them sleeping or doing whatever we chose to.
The thing that bothers me most about loading screens, and I will keep bringing it up, is that you can't have your off-lot sims do anything meaningful.
If you want your kids to do homework, your novelist to write a novel, your rocket scientist to keep building, etc. etc. etc. you have to be on the same lot. These things are boring to watch, and it makes more sense if your spouse, say, wants to do something like write their book, that you go out and do other things. Even if you couldn't reset what they were doing when done, at least letting them continue would make me feel I could leave those sims alone and still do fun things with other sims in the household.
I've always wanted a "Do Homework" away action. I'll pass on this feedback.
@Isa_Menezes I don't think we will be able to have what you're asking for, because it requires being able to build one building around multiple lots (which means building on public between-lot space) but I think a more feasible request might be to have some lots able to be marked as rental in any world, since that only takes a little adjustment to some existing programming, which would be that the lot would just take a small deposit to move into instead of the whole purchase price, but the rent would be added to the bills. Maybe a sim could even purchase a rental lot and receive the rent from it
I think she meant "real apartments" sims 2 style, where apartments were located on 1 lot and divided by a door that blacked out the other apartments.
PS: real npc roommates wouldn't hurt as well (Aka the once that would have separate funds from us, and which we don't have to control?)
Could they be patched in later?
So I think it brings me to a question that I've been meaning to ask for a while. When you release an expansion pack, any expansion pack, is there a possibility that in future you might go back to it and expand more on it? Like tweak or add some new features/interactions? Or is the content of an EP after its release "final" and can't be changed or expanded upon? @SimGuruEugi
Nothing's ever final. We always go back and modify things we want to improve on, depending on what we're trying to do.
Are the public space objects also part of what's copied/included in our saves ? Would adding a basketball hoop in a public space be one of those save-destroying-things for example ?
@SimGuruEugi thanks! It would be interesting to find out what kinds of limitations there are (outside of UI space) on what could be added to the Away menu. I've always assumed that the game cuts off specific actions we have Sims start doing before we leave a lot, but is there a reason that "do work tasks" wouldn't work? Is it not applicable enough of the time or something of the sort? Or would it not work as something that broad? Or has it just been a matter of fitting the development of some things in?
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
I have a couple of questions for the SimGurus about time:
Would it be possible to have the game keep track of what week a player is on within a save? I can't remember if the game did that in TS2 (if you switched around lots, they weren't in phase so it probably didn't), but it did in TS3. I suppose the festivals might help with that (if it's GeekCon again, it must be Week 10), depending on how regular they are.
The game keeps track of weeks, but I guess the UI doesn't show it. Interesting idea on exposing that.
The other question concerns clocks. I remember how delightful it was to discover that my Sim's wall clock actually told the in-game time in TS2. And TS3 clocks did the same. But the TS4 clocks are just decorations. I realize you can't do anything about the clocks we already have, but could future ones be functional? And maybe bring back alarm clocks?
Are the public space objects also part of what's copied/included in our saves ? Would adding a basketball hoop in a public space be one of those save-destroying-things for example ?
If you had a save game, we couldn't "patch" an object and have it show up at a specific location in the world when you load up.
Is there any way it could be made so that when you load a family, and it's the middle of the night, they're in bed when the lot finishes loading, or those of them who should be at work or school are at work or school? I always find them on the sidewalk no matter what time of day and they're all flashing red for missing school or work.
@SimGuruEugi thanks! It would be interesting to find out what kinds of limitations there are (outside of UI space) on what could be added to the Away menu. I've always assumed that the game cuts off specific actions we have Sims start doing before we leave a lot, but is there a reason that "do work tasks" wouldn't work? Is it not applicable enough of the time or something of the sort? Or would it not work as something that broad? Or has it just been a matter of fitting the development of some things in?
From a technical perspective, it depends if the data is saved on Sims or saved on objects. Data that is saved on Sims is more easily manipulatable.
Comments
Levels weren't an issue in TS2 and TS3. I live in a city and apartments with 3 levels is pretty much the norm. A city isn't just downtown. The high rises are downtown, but just outside the down town area are huge amounts of 3 level apartments. And even in the down town area there are 3 level brown stone apartments. I actually preferred my custom 3 level flats in TS3 over the apartment shells. I could create what I wanted and it never got old because I could always create new apartments, plus they took advantage of the future content.
Not sure if you're opposed to mods, but there is one that turns the bassinet invisible so you can then place the baby in a CC crib.
if that hapen ,when your sim take baby from basinet to feed pause game,go in buy mode sell cribs and place what you want. just one.than play,when they put writhe baby in krib go again in buy mode bu crib you want and they put other baby in crib you want
Would it be possible to have the game keep track of what week a player is on within a save? I can't remember if the game did that in TS2 (if you switched around lots, they weren't in phase so it probably didn't), but it did in TS3. I suppose the festivals might help with that (if it's GeekCon again, it must be Week 10), depending on how regular they are.
The other question concerns clocks. I remember how delightful it was to discover that my Sim's wall clock actually told the in-game time in TS2. And TS3 clocks did the same. But the TS4 clocks are just decorations. I realize you can't do anything about the clocks we already have, but could future ones be functional? And maybe bring back alarm clocks?
So if I want a have a lift in my simple home Newcrest , can I not? What if I want a lift in the new spa of my city? Oh yeah , I can't! But what if I want a lift in my store of luxury items that have 4 FLOORS? Let me see ... I can't! STOP DOING EXPANSIONS IN WHICH MODDERS HAVE TO END YOUR SERVICE!
I think there will be quite a few items that we won't find available in the build catalog. It's another curtailing of creativity for the players.
This makes me really sick , the game is based on stories , right? And if the drug my story I want to tell my sim know the perfect guy in an elevator NOT STAY IN AN APARTMENT ?
Thank you. You said this a lot nicer than I was about to.
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The limitation I was talking about was about our ability to patch exiting lots by adding/removing objects and build buy structures. That data is defined in what you download, but only matters the first time you play. After you save your game, objects, walls, etc. become part of your save game. That's why we don't patch *those aspects* of worlds.
As for retrofitting worlds, it's partly a matter of fiction. We wanted San Myshuno to feel very unique, and we put all our world creation efforts there, rather than diving our attention and adding apartments to our suburban worlds.
Those lots' purpose is to support the active careers they are associated with (and giving birth, for the hospital). If you were to travel there, but not as part of that flow, the venue might not work as you'd expect it to.
You can't delete the shells from regular gameplay.
You can delete all the of an apartment's inside walls, and you can freely build on all apartments in a building.
I've always wanted a "Do Homework" away action. I'll pass on this feedback.
Nothing's ever final. We always go back and modify things we want to improve on, depending on what we're trying to do.
Hmm, I don't know off the top of my head. Quite a few. I think the EP3 folks will share more info soon.
Honestly don't know. Haven't played it yet!
The game keeps track of weeks, but I guess the UI doesn't show it. Interesting idea on exposing that.
OH I know... I know
If you had a save game, we couldn't "patch" an object and have it show up at a specific location in the world when you load up.
From a technical perspective, it depends if the data is saved on Sims or saved on objects. Data that is saved on Sims is more easily manipulatable.