> @nickibitsward said: > ts1depot wrote: » > > ShojoDagger wrote: » > > That is one of the complaints I've seen about S4, players feeling that going from S3's open world to S4's closed world is/was a step backward and, objectively, it is. > > > > > It's not objective. With open world, players waste many sim hours doing nothing that has little to do with gameplay, like watching sims drive to and fro from places or wait for elevators and get trapped in them. To me, that was a huge step backwards because so much of this kind of stuff ate into gameplay. In a game about sims, why should waiting for elevators or driving from here to there take up something like 30% of what you do in-game? It doesn't make sense. Okay, I'm playing a game about sims but...they have to work. Okay, let me watch them wait for the elevator...go down the elevator...leave the lobby...wait for the cab...drive to work for a whole sim hour...get out of the car...walk to the door of the rabbithole. > > This travel also ate into your sims' time, too. You only have so much time in any sim day to work, complete chores, take care of the family and go to venues and parties. With open world, all of this travel time takes away from what little time you have to do anything. > > Also, with open world, whatever households you played were stuck in that one town forever, with no ability to travel back and forth between towns or move and not lose relationships. If you loved the new towns that came with IP or Ambitions or whatever and wanted your sims to move there (or just visit) but still be able to keep their friendships, it was all or nothing. > > Lastly, there were always issues with performance. Many people experienced empty venues because their systems couldn't handle how intensive open world was. To compensate, the game had to reduce the number of sims that showed up anywhere. > > How is this all "objectively better" than the system we have now? It's not. > > And no disrespect intended, but just know that you're giving yourself away as someone who hasn't played TS4 extensively, if at all. It's obvious. If you did, you'd understand that TS4 has certain flaws (just like open world had its flaws) but that in many ways it solved a lot of the problems that many of us had with open world. Because it did, you can't assert that it's "objectively worse" or a "step back." It's your subjective opinion (based on little personal experience with TS4, it seems) that TS4 is a step back. Not an objective reality. > > > > > My niece loves watching her sim drive across town in his fancy car to work. (She's 12). Isn't that gameplay? Get up, breakfast, shower, go to work? Take your car or a taxi? What's not gameplay about that? > > Teleport, well you can do that, no problem. That's how it works in Sims 4. Disappear off the lot. Not much gameplay there. Disappear into a rabbit hole for work? What's the difference between that and disappearing off the screen? > After work my sim doesn't have to come right home, poof back on the lot. I can send him anywhere in town. Stop off to get a book and then go to the park and read it while it's still a bit sunny. Meet up with some friends and hit one of the clubs, all without multi loading screens. And I have never experienced empty venues. > > TS4 is a step backward. At least for me. And yes, I do own it and yes, I have played it. It's the lack of open world and create-a-style and basics like terrain tools and vehicles that made me stop playing it.
Good points :) I also find it fun to watch a Sim drive around and seeing what is around them. Some times you see a Sim standing by a community lot doing nothing. Other times there are two Sims there actually interacting and at rare times you may even see two Sims fighting! :o
It is as I said before, The Sims 3 is not just about the Sims but also about the world around them and how they interact with that world :)
I myself love to watch my Sims driving/walking/running from point A to point B. And as far as I'm concern, it is a part of my gameplay and not a waste to my game... I very much like watching my Sims drive around town instead of the teleporting from point A to point B, that is not realistic to me and it's not my cup of tea either.
I wish EA had allowed us to travel from town to town that wasn't a part of the WA/ITF/UL but at least NRaas has a mod that does allow me to take my sim to any world that I want to go to and come back home. And I can set the length of the vacation time to whatever. So since I can travel from town to town using the Traveler mod, I don't get bored seeing the same town day in and day out.
@lisasc360 I agree that it would be good if Sims could go from one town to the next like sub neighbourhoods, something that is actually possible in TS4 and something I would like to see again in the future :)
That is one of the complaints I've seen about S4, players feeling that going from S3's open world to S4's closed world is/was a step backward and, objectively, it is.
It's not objective. With open world, players waste many sim hours doing nothing that has little to do with gameplay, like watching sims drive to and fro from places or wait for elevators and get trapped in them. To me, that was a huge step backwards because so much of this kind of stuff ate into gameplay. In a game about sims, why should waiting for elevators or driving from here to there take up something like 30% of what you do in-game? It doesn't make sense. Okay, I'm playing a game about sims but...they have to work. Okay, let me watch them wait for the elevator...go down the elevator...leave the lobby...wait for the cab...drive to work for a whole sim hour...get out of the car...walk to the door of the rabbithole.
This travel also ate into your sims' time, too. You only have so much time in any sim day to work, complete chores, take care of the family and go to venues and parties. With open world, all of this travel time takes away from what little time you have to do anything.
Also, with open world, whatever households you played were stuck in that one town forever, with no ability to travel back and forth between towns or move and not lose relationships. If you loved the new towns that came with IP or Ambitions or whatever and wanted your sims to move there (or just visit) but still be able to keep their friendships, it was all or nothing.
Lastly, there were always issues with performance. Many people experienced empty venues because their systems couldn't handle how intensive open world was. To compensate, the game had to reduce the number of sims that showed up anywhere.
How is this all "objectively better" than the system we have now? It's not.
And no disrespect intended, but just know that you're giving yourself away as someone who hasn't played TS4 extensively, if at all. It's obvious. If you did, you'd understand that TS4 has certain flaws (just like open world had its flaws) but that in many ways it solved a lot of the problems that many of us had with open world. Because it did, you can't assert that it's "objectively worse" or a "step back." It's your subjective opinion (based on little personal experience with TS4, it seems) that TS4 is a step back. Not an objective reality.
Travelling in fact = gameplay. And if it's not for you, no problem: teleport your sims wherever you want them to go.
I don't get what elevators have to do with open world by the way, elevators are within buildings. You are describing having a career in a Bridgeport apartment there, which 1. is very specific (there's more to open world than living in a BP apartment) and 2. I tested that a while ago and sims simply make it in time to their work, because they are clocked in the minute they step into the carpool or schoolbus. They in fact thought that through perfectly. It's exactly the same as a sim in TS4 walking to the door and vanishing into thin air. The only difference is that in TS3 you know where they are, you can follow them if you want to (and not if you don't care for stuff like that).
Travelling between neighborhoods in TS4 is great, but there is no reason to assume that has anything to do with closed neighbordhoods-open world. TS4 is a 2014 game. A mod made it possible to travel between worlds in TS3 so I'm convinced EA could do that as well if they wanted to. Apart from this: as a Sims 3 player I can tell you from experience you're not tied to one world. I've played in many worlds with the same sims. My current sim moved from Dragon Valley to IP and even though her sister wasn't her sister anymore, she is now thanks to Mastercontroller. If NRaas can do such a thing, so can a game developer. You're falling into the good old trap of treating open world concept as 'the way it was in Sims 3'. Sims 3 is a 2009 game, we're in 2017 now, talking about the future, not the past.
I have played Sims 4 and as you know I frequently visit its forums. Sims 4 may have solved certain issues with open world (issues I solved with NRaas Overwatch and Errortrap, which I prefer because it means I at least still have open world), it replaced it by many others that sound way more severe and game breaking to me. Closed neighborhoods without any room for customization didn't solve anything.
I prefer open world and I don't even mind rabbit holes especially if the sacrifice means Cast, I thought maybe it was an age thing that I was clinging on to the new, fresh, innovative feel of TS3 but I offered to buy my niece TS4 for Easter and she said "no thanks I am not interested in loading screens 4, what EP do I need for mermaids".
There are many reasons I chose not to purchase TS4 but no open world was certainly among the deciding factors, at least the forums are still open world I see this thread has meandered over here from the TS4 section.
That is one of the complaints I've seen about S4, players feeling that going from S3's open world to S4's closed world is/was a step backward and, objectively, it is.
It's not objective. With open world, players waste many sim hours doing nothing that has little to do with gameplay, like watching sims drive to and fro from places or wait for elevators and get trapped in them. To me, that was a huge step backwards because so much of this kind of stuff ate into gameplay. In a game about sims, why should waiting for elevators or driving from here to there take up something like 30% of what you do in-game? It doesn't make sense. Okay, I'm playing a game about sims but...they have to work. Okay, let me watch them wait for the elevator...go down the elevator...leave the lobby...wait for the cab...drive to work for a whole sim hour...get out of the car...walk to the door of the rabbithole.
This travel also ate into your sims' time, too. You only have so much time in any sim day to work, complete chores, take care of the family and go to venues and parties. With open world, all of this travel time takes away from what little time you have to do anything.
Also, with open world, whatever households you played were stuck in that one town forever, with no ability to travel back and forth between towns or move and not lose relationships. If you loved the new towns that came with IP or Ambitions or whatever and wanted your sims to move there (or just visit) but still be able to keep their friendships, it was all or nothing.
Lastly, there were always issues with performance. Many people experienced empty venues because their systems couldn't handle how intensive open world was. To compensate, the game had to reduce the number of sims that showed up anywhere.
How is this all "objectively better" than the system we have now? It's not.
And no disrespect intended, but just know that you're giving yourself away as someone who hasn't played TS4 extensively, if at all. It's obvious. If you did, you'd understand that TS4 has certain flaws (just like open world had its flaws) but that in many ways it solved a lot of the problems that many of us had with open world. Because it did, you can't assert that it's "objectively worse" or a "step back." It's your subjective opinion (based on little personal experience with TS4, it seems) that TS4 is a step back. Not an objective reality.
Travelling in fact = gameplay. And if it's not for you, no problem: teleport your sims wherever you want them to go.
I don't get what elevators have to do with open world by the way, elevators are within buildings. You are describing having a career in a Bridgeport apartment there, which 1. is very specific (there's more to open world than living in a BP apartment) and 2. I tested that a while ago and sims simply make it in time to their work, because they are clocked in the minute they step into the carpool or schoolbus. They in fact thought that through perfectly. It's exactly the same as a sim in TS4 walking to the door and vanishing into thin air. The only difference is that in TS3 you know where they are, you can follow them if you want to (and not if you don't care for stuff like that).
Travelling between neighborhoods in TS4 is great, but there is no reason to assume that has anything to do with closed neighbordhoods-open world. TS4 is a 2014 game. A mod made it possible to travel between worlds in TS3 so I'm convinced EA could do that as well if they wanted to. Apart from this: as a Sims 3 player I can tell you from experience you're not tied to one world. I've played in many worlds with the same sims. My current sim moved from Dragon Valley to IP and even though her sister wasn't her sister anymore, she is now thanks to Mastercontroller. If NRaas can do such a thing, so can a game developer. You're falling into the good old trap of treating open world concept as 'the way it was in Sims 3'. Sims 3 is a 2009 game, we're in 2017 now, talking about the future, not the past.
I have played Sims 4 and as you know I frequently visit its forums. Sims 4 may have solved certain issues with open world (issues I solved with NRaas Overwatch and Errortrap, which I prefer because it means I at least still have open world), it replaced it by many others that sound way more severe and game breaking to me. Closed neighborhoods without any room for customization didn't solve anything.
I disagree that open world was the step backwards. I don't have any issues with open world on my computer. I think the memory system is harder on this game than open world, in my opinion. Anyway, it doesn't make sense to have horses in a closed world and they are one of my favorite things about this game. I love watching the wild horses interact in their little herd while my sim sleeps. It's a nice break from having to manage my sim. If they come out with pets in 4, I wonder if there will be horses and how they'll be handled. I know it won't be the same.
That is one of the complaints I've seen about S4, players feeling that going from S3's open world to S4's closed world is/was a step backward and, objectively, it is.
It's not objective. With open world, players waste many sim hours doing nothing that has little to do with gameplay, like watching sims drive to and fro from places or wait for elevators and get trapped in them. To me, that was a huge step backwards because so much of this kind of stuff ate into gameplay. In a game about sims, why should waiting for elevators or driving from here to there take up something like 30% of what you do in-game? It doesn't make sense. Okay, I'm playing a game about sims but...they have to work. Okay, let me watch them wait for the elevator...go down the elevator...leave the lobby...wait for the cab...drive to work for a whole sim hour...get out of the car...walk to the door of the rabbithole.
This travel also ate into your sims' time, too. You only have so much time in any sim day to work, complete chores, take care of the family and go to venues and parties. With open world, all of this travel time takes away from what little time you have to do anything.
Also, with open world, whatever households you played were stuck in that one town forever, with no ability to travel back and forth between towns or move and not lose relationships. If you loved the new towns that came with IP or Ambitions or whatever and wanted your sims to move there (or just visit) but still be able to keep their friendships, it was all or nothing.
Lastly, there were always issues with performance. Many people experienced empty venues because their systems couldn't handle how intensive open world was. To compensate, the game had to reduce the number of sims that showed up anywhere.
How is this all "objectively better" than the system we have now? It's not.
And no disrespect intended, but just know that you're giving yourself away as someone who hasn't played TS4 extensively, if at all. It's obvious. If you did, you'd understand that TS4 has certain flaws (just like open world had its flaws) but that in many ways it solved a lot of the problems that many of us had with open world. Because it did, you can't assert that it's "objectively worse" or a "step back." It's your subjective opinion (based on little personal experience with TS4, it seems) that TS4 is a step back. Not an objective reality.
It is objective because it's a fact. It's not difficult to understand the definitions of progression and retrogression based on the base game features alone. What is subjective is what each individual prefers better based on their own likes/dislikes. Apparently, you have a completely different expectation of what gameplay is and is not. It's a LIFE SIMULATOR. That's what people do, they walk, jog, drive, carpool, etc to get where they need to go. You sound like you are playing the wrong genre and so is everyone else who feels the same as you. But no worries, EA got the audience they were looking for and then complain about there not being a TS5 because TS4 is selling poorly. Yeah, who did they think the majority was, the easily-impressed casual players? There's no way they could have genuinely thought that based on the feedback from TS2/TS3. And if so...just wow.
While it's true it can take time...which is realistic, I still can get a lot done within a Sim day. And one of the features I forgot to mention that is another reason why I love the open world so much is the ability to control multiple Sims and have them all work towards getting things done. One at home paying bills, another going food shopping, another taking the kids to the park, etc. I can direct them all and things get done a lot faster just as it wiould if done in real life that way than just by one person. I don't want my gameplay easy, I want it realistic and I want it challenging. But I also think this is something that should be optional so all players can choose how they want to play their way. But first and foremost, this is a life simulator.
Not the fault of the open world because anytime NRass Traveler can do it, so could have the developers. But they didn't, unfortunately.
You are confusing the majority vs minority. If it were the majority who faced those performance issues, I higly doubt TS3 would be as successful and popular. Even running TS3 on a computer for school with an incompatible video card, my game ran okay. Obviously, not the best gaming experience but apparently, TS3 had something truly amazing for me to overlook the fault of the hardware to play TS3 as intended. Was not the game's fault I played on a computer not built for games or at least with TS3 in mind. It is objectively better pertaining to the genre The Sims became. You can't get a real and functional life simulator if you are faking everything with an illusion instead of actual simulation. That is what The Sims is about, SIMULATION. And I will say it again, whoever designed the AI/Simulation in TS3 is/are genius(es). TS4 is a goal-orientated emotion simulator trying to pose as a life/people simulator and fails miserably. It is not like TS/TS2/TS3 at all.
No one needs to play TS4 extensively, or at all, to understand and know about the past iteration flaws because it's common sense to have seen those observations. See, that's fine and all if you and others enjoy TS4 because you don't have computers to run a real advanced in-depth life simulator and instead blame it on the game not your computer but that does not make TS4 a better game objectively but rather subjectively. I think you are also confused by those two terms. It is a fact that TS4 has gone in reverse. There are no and's, if's, or but's about it. If you can't accept the truth, there is no point in trying to defend why you think TS4 is better when you can't even be honest and accept the facts.
“What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter”
@ts1depot There are countless ways to basically eliminate travelling times. For example, I placed llamas (the TARDIS-thingy from supernatural) on the most crucial points in town: school, work etc. Or the subway. Or the hot air balloon from the Store. Or if you want it to work like it does in TS4, then Ctrl+Shift+Teleport here.
And as for the empty lots, take a look at Riverview. I don't have a very good gaming PC, but the venues are never empty.
Not everyone has or wants Aurora Skies or Supernatural. Not everyone uses cheats to play the game. So how do people like that have "countless ways" to eliminate travel?
No one has ever complained about empty venues in Riverview. It's large, robust city worlds like Late Night and Showtime that come with nightclubs, stages, dance clubs, lounges, Simfest lots, etc. that have this issue. But I suspect you knew that, which is why you chose the lightest world of TS3 to use as an example.
Disappear into a rabbit hole for work? What's the difference between that and disappearing off the screen?
And yes, I do own it and yes, I have played it.
If you own and have "played TS4", how come you don't know that with GTW, you can follow your sims to their workplaces? Or that with City Living, three of the new careers allow you to work in and around town instead of disappearing into a rabbithole?
@ts1depot There are countless ways to basically eliminate travelling times. For example, I placed llamas (the TARDIS-thingy from supernatural) on the most crucial points in town: school, work etc. Or the subway. Or the hot air balloon from the Store. Or if you want it to work like it does in TS4, then Ctrl+Shift+Teleport here.
And as for the empty lots, take a look at Riverview. I don't have a very good gaming PC, but the venues are never empty.
Not everyone has or wants Aurora Skies or Supernatural. Not everyone uses cheats to play the game. So how do people like that have "countless ways" to eliminate travel?
No one has ever complained about empty venues in Riverview. It's large, robust city worlds like Late Night and Showtime that come with nightclubs, stages, dance clubs, lounges, Simfest lots, etc. that have this issue. But I suspect you knew that, which is why you chose the lightest world of TS3 to use as an example.
Bridgeport nightclubs were empty for me when Late Night had been released. I was pleasantly surprised, playing there a few years later, on a new computer, they weren't anymore. This is the whole problem: people are using 2010 experiences and call it objective. It's not. And travelling by air balloons or spaceships isn't cheating, it's part of the game. Is teleporting? Yes, it is in Sims 3, but it doesn't have to be in a successor. They could implement it as a regular option, teleporting somewhere. The point is: teleporting is possible in an open world. There's not much open world rules out. You are, again, judging this standing in the past. We are talking about the future here.
Disappear into a rabbit hole for work? What's the difference between that and disappearing off the screen?
And yes, I do own it and yes, I have played it.
If you own and have "played TS4", how come you don't know that with GTW, you can follow your sims to their workplaces? Or that with City Living, three of the new careers allow you to work in and around town instead of disappearing into a rabbithole?
You are, in turn, aware Sims 3 has open careers as well, and fully functioning open venues? This is possible in an open world.
Bridgeport nightclubs were empty for me when Late Night had been released. I was pleasantly surprised, playing there a few years later, on a new computer, they weren't anymore. This is the whole problem: people are using 2010 experiences and call it objective.
This has nothing to do with "2010 experiences." The Sims is a casual game. People who play this game either play on laptops, budget machines or do not have gaming rigs and do not buy new machines every two years. That's why they went with open neighborhood instead of open world. The same people who had bad experiences with Late Night in 2010 would still have bad experiences with open world in TS4 because they will either still own the same computer they had back then, be running the game on a laptop or using a mid range computer.
It's not. And travelling by air balloons or spaceships isn't cheating.
I didn't say they were cheating, and I think you understood very well what I meant when I brought Aurora Skies or Supernatural up. If you don't or have either, then you don't have "plenty of opportunities" to cut travel time at all.
If you own and have "played TS4", how come you don't know that with GTW, you can follow your sims to their workplaces? Or that with City Living, three of the new careers allow you to work in and around town instead of disappearing into a rabbithole?
You are, in turn, aware Sims 3 has open careers as well, and fully functioning open venues? This is possible in an open world.
This response has nothing to do with my earlier comment. Someone said that they own and play TS4. Yet, oddly enough, this person didn't know that sims don't disappear offscreen. There are three careers that have workplaces that you can follow them to, and there are three careers where you can travel to different places to complete a day's work. I wanted to know why this person can say they're familiar with TS4 when they don't know that it has six careers where players can follow their sims to work.
Disappear into a rabbit hole for work? What's the difference between that and disappearing off the screen?
And yes, I do own it and yes, I have played it.
If you own and have "played TS4", how come you don't know that with GTW, you can follow your sims to their workplaces? Or that with City Living, three of the new careers allow you to work in and around town instead of disappearing into a rabbithole?
I own the base game. Lack of what was in the base game convinced me not to throw good money after bad. Real money, not simoleons. And yes, I do know I can follow my sims to work with GTW. I have friends who have GTW. They are not impressed.
@ts1depot If The Sims is a casual game to some, why should that be the problem of others? For many players it's the only game they play and far from casual. If it indeed would be 'casual' (what is that anyway), why do they make it so much more expensive than any other game out there? That's right, because those 'casual' players are prepared to pay it. Not so casual I'd say.
I didn't say they were cheating, and I think you understood very well what I meant when I brought Aurora Skies or Supernatural up. If you don't or have either, then you don't have "plenty of opportunities" to cut travel time at all.
Yes you did, you said "not everyone uses cheats to play the game" (which by the way is the biggest joke ever but ok, let's pretend there actually are simmers on this planet who don't do cheats). I think you very well understood my point: in Sims 3 teleporting is possible with the most simple and universal cheat the game has. Let me remind you again this topic isn't about Sims 3, it's about open world. Travelling clearly is not a necessity in an open world. It's a choice. In Sims 3 you need the cheat or certain EP's to make it happen, but nothing would be more simple for the creators than adding the 'teleport' option as a regular command to a basegame, instead of only showing it with testingcheats and shift.
This response has nothing to do with my earlier comment. Someone said that they own and play TS4. Yet, oddly enough, this person didn't know that sims don't disappear offscreen. There are three careers that have workplaces that you can follow them to, and there are three careers where you can travel to different places to complete a day's work. I wanted to know why this person can say they're familiar with TS4 when they don't know that it has six careers where players can follow their sims to work.
No, you're twisting words there. What someone said was "Disappear into a rabbit hole for work? What's the difference between that and disappearing off the screen?" Clearly referring to the rabbithole careers you brought up, the careers where your sims disappear, not open careers. In Sims 3 that means disappearing inside a building, in Sims 4 (and 2) it means disappearing. What's the difference is all that simmer said. You were the one bringing up rabbitholes, so it's odd to suddenly bring open careers into that discussion and then accuse the simmer of not knowing Sims 4. You were comparing apples to oranges. There are closed careers in both Sims 3 and Sims 4, there are also open careers in both Sims 3 and Sims 4.
GameSpot Review: (February 11, 2000) on TheSims. (TS1)
Maxis' The Sims is about creating, managing, and controlling the lives of tiny computerized people who dwell in miniature homes. The game's excellent music and sound effects, detailed scenery, cleverly animated characters, and equally clever writing go a long way toward fulfilling this intriguing premise. Yet though you can exercise a considerable amount of control over your sims' behavior and lifestyles, The Sims' actual gameplay is rather limited in some respects - either by odd inconsistencies or by actual restrictions placed on your actions. But to the game's credit, the most objectionable thing about these occasional limits is how starkly they contrast with the otherwise tremendous freedom you have to lead your sims' lives.
Doesn't sound like something for casual gamers to me.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
It's a LIFE SIMULATOR. That's what people do, they walk, jog, drive, carpool, etc to get where they need to go. You sound like you are playing the wrong genre and so is everyone else who feels the same as you.
The Sims is not a life simulator--never has been, never was, never will be. You can yell that at me in all caps all you want or talk down to me as I'm your intellectual inferior like the arrogant person that you are. It won't make one bit of difference. It's always been a god and virtual dollhouse game, where the aim has been to control your sims and play out scenarios with them like you would dolls or puppets.
The working title of The Sims was literally called "Dollhouse," and the very reason why the game has had a dollhouse object in every iteration since TS1 is as an in-joke and nod to Will Wright.
The walls of the houses "break away" exactly as a doll house would.
We have an immensely large storytelling community precisely because starting with TS1, players were encouraged by Maxis to make stories with their sims and post them online on The Exchange and on their own webpages.
But don't take my word for it:
Where does it say anything in that screenshot about a "life simulator?" Can you tell me?
Where does it say anything about The Sims being a life simulator in the following articles?
The Sims Online (2002)
Wright has already seen Magic Kingdom-size success. His SimCity launched the god-game genre a decade ago. And The Sims — including expansion packs like The Sims House Party, Hot Date, and Unleashed — has moved 18 million copies, making it the best-selling computer game in history. A virtual dollhouse that lets players direct the day-to-day lives of simulated humans, The Sims has attracted women and nongamers in unprecedented numbers. https://www.wired.com/2002/11/simcity/
Populous to The Sims: a history of playing god (2009)
In other games, such as The Sims, it's a more general thing. You're the puppetmaster of the simulation, typically with objectives that provide a framework, but the real entertainment coming from your own experimentation and the stories you create for yourself within the sim. Your people may have individual names, wants and faces or be summed up as something more general, like a planet with a population of 7,043,035 that exists only to be part of some later calculation. http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/populous-to-the-sims-a-history-of-playing-god-533742
Go figure. In 2002, everybody was calling The Sims a god game and virtual dollhouse, and they were still calling it that in 2009. Will Wright himself considered it a god game and virtual dollhouse. But I dunno. You're so intellectually superior; maybe everyone in the world, including Will Wright himself, has gotten this game's genre wrong for 17 years and you're the Enlightened, All Knowing Sage whose word we should be taking that it's a life simulator.
BTW, I'm not going to respond to any of the other stuff you posted. As old as I am, I'm positive that I have at least 20 years on you, at least--not just in age, but in terms of experience in and knowledge about the gaming industry and computers in general. So I don't know where you get off talking down to me in such a condescending manner but don't bother responding to me after this point because I won't be responding back.
@ts1depot Ok, I know the discussion has gone to a completely different direction by now, but I just have to answer. The reason I brought up Riverview was only because I'm currently playing in that world. But I admit, Starlight Shores and Bridgeport does have empty venues. Or at least as long as you place 4 nightclubs and karaoke bars in your world. Not to mention that you can combine the library with the book store etc. (no, you don't need rabbit hole rugs for that) and more sims will go there. If you don't have a good PC, then you do have to take certain steps to make more sims come to the community lots. Think about it as a way to practice building.
Sim is short for simulator. So the Sims game is a LIFE SIMULATOR.
Proof:
The Sims is a life simulation video game series, developed by EA Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide and it is one of the best-selling video games series of all time.
Edit to say that if the Sims is NOT a simulation game, then why is it classified as a simulation when looking it up on the Origin website? Wouldn't it be classified as something else then? And what would it be classified as if it's not a simulation game?
Edit again to say that we really don't need the name calling in here. Calling people "arrogant" goes against the forum rules as it is considered harassment.
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Maxis went public in 1995 with revenue of US$38 million. The stock reached $50 a share and then dropped as Maxis posted a loss. EA bought Maxis in June 1997. Wright had been thinking about making a virtual doll house ever since the early 1990s, similar to SimCity but focused on individual people; after losing his home during the Oakland firestorm of 1991, he was inspired to turn his experiences of rebuilding his life into a game. Sims would be based on Wright's focus on building homes, which came from inspiration he found first-hand.[12] Wright, was even sure to include many fires in the game, which were extra difficult for the player to extinguish. Themes like carpentry, home construction, and bare ground in need of landscaping, are common throughout the game. Originally conceived of as an architectural design game called Home Tactics, Wright's idea changed when someone suggested the player should be rated on the quality of life experience by the homeowners. It was a difficult idea to sell to EA, because already 40% of Maxis's employees had been laid off.
Note the second bold-italics quote... It was suggested to Wright that the game become a life-simulation. Hmmmm, let's see where EA places Sims 4 and Sims 3?
Comments
> ts1depot wrote: »
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> ShojoDagger wrote: »
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> That is one of the complaints I've seen about S4, players feeling that going from S3's open world to S4's closed world is/was a step backward and, objectively, it is.
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> It's not objective. With open world, players waste many sim hours doing nothing that has little to do with gameplay, like watching sims drive to and fro from places or wait for elevators and get trapped in them. To me, that was a huge step backwards because so much of this kind of stuff ate into gameplay. In a game about sims, why should waiting for elevators or driving from here to there take up something like 30% of what you do in-game? It doesn't make sense. Okay, I'm playing a game about sims but...they have to work. Okay, let me watch them wait for the elevator...go down the elevator...leave the lobby...wait for the cab...drive to work for a whole sim hour...get out of the car...walk to the door of the rabbithole.
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> This travel also ate into your sims' time, too. You only have so much time in any sim day to work, complete chores, take care of the family and go to venues and parties. With open world, all of this travel time takes away from what little time you have to do anything.
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> Also, with open world, whatever households you played were stuck in that one town forever, with no ability to travel back and forth between towns or move and not lose relationships. If you loved the new towns that came with IP or Ambitions or whatever and wanted your sims to move there (or just visit) but still be able to keep their friendships, it was all or nothing.
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> Lastly, there were always issues with performance. Many people experienced empty venues because their systems couldn't handle how intensive open world was. To compensate, the game had to reduce the number of sims that showed up anywhere.
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> How is this all "objectively better" than the system we have now? It's not.
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> And no disrespect intended, but just know that you're giving yourself away as someone who hasn't played TS4 extensively, if at all. It's obvious. If you did, you'd understand that TS4 has certain flaws (just like open world had its flaws) but that in many ways it solved a lot of the problems that many of us had with open world. Because it did, you can't assert that it's "objectively worse" or a "step back." It's your subjective opinion (based on little personal experience with TS4, it seems) that TS4 is a step back. Not an objective reality.
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> My niece loves watching her sim drive across town in his fancy car to work. (She's 12). Isn't that gameplay? Get up, breakfast, shower, go to work? Take your car or a taxi? What's not gameplay about that?
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> Teleport, well you can do that, no problem. That's how it works in Sims 4. Disappear off the lot. Not much gameplay there. Disappear into a rabbit hole for work? What's the difference between that and disappearing off the screen?
> After work my sim doesn't have to come right home, poof back on the lot. I can send him anywhere in town. Stop off to get a book and then go to the park and read it while it's still a bit sunny. Meet up with some friends and hit one of the clubs, all without multi loading screens. And I have never experienced empty venues.
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> TS4 is a step backward. At least for me. And yes, I do own it and yes, I have played it. It's the lack of open world and create-a-style and basics like terrain tools and vehicles that made me stop playing it.
Good points :) I also find it fun to watch a Sim drive around and seeing what is around them. Some times you see a Sim standing by a community lot doing nothing. Other times there are two Sims there actually interacting and at rare times you may even see two Sims fighting! :o
It is as I said before, The Sims 3 is not just about the Sims but also about the world around them and how they interact with that world :)
I wish EA had allowed us to travel from town to town that wasn't a part of the WA/ITF/UL but at least NRaas has a mod that does allow me to take my sim to any world that I want to go to and come back home. And I can set the length of the vacation time to whatever. So since I can travel from town to town using the Traveler mod, I don't get bored seeing the same town day in and day out.
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My stories on this site:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/991317/my-sims-stories/p1?new=1
I don't get what elevators have to do with open world by the way, elevators are within buildings. You are describing having a career in a Bridgeport apartment there, which 1. is very specific (there's more to open world than living in a BP apartment) and 2. I tested that a while ago and sims simply make it in time to their work, because they are clocked in the minute they step into the carpool or schoolbus. They in fact thought that through perfectly. It's exactly the same as a sim in TS4 walking to the door and vanishing into thin air. The only difference is that in TS3 you know where they are, you can follow them if you want to (and not if you don't care for stuff like that).
Travelling between neighborhoods in TS4 is great, but there is no reason to assume that has anything to do with closed neighbordhoods-open world. TS4 is a 2014 game. A mod made it possible to travel between worlds in TS3 so I'm convinced EA could do that as well if they wanted to. Apart from this: as a Sims 3 player I can tell you from experience you're not tied to one world. I've played in many worlds with the same sims. My current sim moved from Dragon Valley to IP and even though her sister wasn't her sister anymore, she is now thanks to Mastercontroller. If NRaas can do such a thing, so can a game developer. You're falling into the good old trap of treating open world concept as 'the way it was in Sims 3'. Sims 3 is a 2009 game, we're in 2017 now, talking about the future, not the past.
I have played Sims 4 and as you know I frequently visit its forums. Sims 4 may have solved certain issues with open world (issues I solved with NRaas Overwatch and Errortrap, which I prefer because it means I at least still have open world), it replaced it by many others that sound way more severe and game breaking to me. Closed neighborhoods without any room for customization didn't solve anything.
There are many reasons I chose not to purchase TS4 but no open world was certainly among the deciding factors, at least the forums are still open world I see this thread has meandered over here from the TS4 section.
I agree with everything @JoAnne65 said here...
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My stories on this site:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/991317/my-sims-stories/p1?new=1
It is objective because it's a fact. It's not difficult to understand the definitions of progression and retrogression based on the base game features alone. What is subjective is what each individual prefers better based on their own likes/dislikes. Apparently, you have a completely different expectation of what gameplay is and is not. It's a LIFE SIMULATOR. That's what people do, they walk, jog, drive, carpool, etc to get where they need to go. You sound like you are playing the wrong genre and so is everyone else who feels the same as you. But no worries, EA got the audience they were looking for and then complain about there not being a TS5 because TS4 is selling poorly. Yeah, who did they think the majority was, the easily-impressed casual players? There's no way they could have genuinely thought that based on the feedback from TS2/TS3. And if so...just wow.
While it's true it can take time...which is realistic, I still can get a lot done within a Sim day. And one of the features I forgot to mention that is another reason why I love the open world so much is the ability to control multiple Sims and have them all work towards getting things done. One at home paying bills, another going food shopping, another taking the kids to the park, etc. I can direct them all and things get done a lot faster just as it wiould if done in real life that way than just by one person. I don't want my gameplay easy, I want it realistic and I want it challenging. But I also think this is something that should be optional so all players can choose how they want to play their way. But first and foremost, this is a life simulator.
Not the fault of the open world because anytime NRass Traveler can do it, so could have the developers. But they didn't, unfortunately.
You are confusing the majority vs minority. If it were the majority who faced those performance issues, I higly doubt TS3 would be as successful and popular. Even running TS3 on a computer for school with an incompatible video card, my game ran okay. Obviously, not the best gaming experience but apparently, TS3 had something truly amazing for me to overlook the fault of the hardware to play TS3 as intended. Was not the game's fault I played on a computer not built for games or at least with TS3 in mind. It is objectively better pertaining to the genre The Sims became. You can't get a real and functional life simulator if you are faking everything with an illusion instead of actual simulation. That is what The Sims is about, SIMULATION. And I will say it again, whoever designed the AI/Simulation in TS3 is/are genius(es). TS4 is a goal-orientated emotion simulator trying to pose as a life/people simulator and fails miserably. It is not like TS/TS2/TS3 at all.
No one needs to play TS4 extensively, or at all, to understand and know about the past iteration flaws because it's common sense to have seen those observations. See, that's fine and all if you and others enjoy TS4 because you don't have computers to run a real advanced in-depth life simulator and instead blame it on the game not your computer but that does not make TS4 a better game objectively but rather subjectively. I think you are also confused by those two terms. It is a fact that TS4 has gone in reverse. There are no and's, if's, or but's about it. If you can't accept the truth, there is no point in trying to defend why you think TS4 is better when you can't even be honest and accept the facts.
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter”
Not everyone has or wants Aurora Skies or Supernatural. Not everyone uses cheats to play the game. So how do people like that have "countless ways" to eliminate travel?
No one has ever complained about empty venues in Riverview. It's large, robust city worlds like Late Night and Showtime that come with nightclubs, stages, dance clubs, lounges, Simfest lots, etc. that have this issue. But I suspect you knew that, which is why you chose the lightest world of TS3 to use as an example.
If you own and have "played TS4", how come you don't know that with GTW, you can follow your sims to their workplaces? Or that with City Living, three of the new careers allow you to work in and around town instead of disappearing into a rabbithole?
You are, in turn, aware Sims 3 has open careers as well, and fully functioning open venues? This is possible in an open world.
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This has nothing to do with "2010 experiences." The Sims is a casual game. People who play this game either play on laptops, budget machines or do not have gaming rigs and do not buy new machines every two years. That's why they went with open neighborhood instead of open world. The same people who had bad experiences with Late Night in 2010 would still have bad experiences with open world in TS4 because they will either still own the same computer they had back then, be running the game on a laptop or using a mid range computer.
I didn't say they were cheating, and I think you understood very well what I meant when I brought Aurora Skies or Supernatural up. If you don't or have either, then you don't have "plenty of opportunities" to cut travel time at all.
This response has nothing to do with my earlier comment. Someone said that they own and play TS4. Yet, oddly enough, this person didn't know that sims don't disappear offscreen. There are three careers that have workplaces that you can follow them to, and there are three careers where you can travel to different places to complete a day's work. I wanted to know why this person can say they're familiar with TS4 when they don't know that it has six careers where players can follow their sims to work.
I own the base game. Lack of what was in the base game convinced me not to throw good money after bad. Real money, not simoleons. And yes, I do know I can follow my sims to work with GTW. I have friends who have GTW. They are not impressed.
Doesn't sound like something for casual gamers to me.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
The Sims is not a life simulator--never has been, never was, never will be. You can yell that at me in all caps all you want or talk down to me as I'm your intellectual inferior like the arrogant person that you are. It won't make one bit of difference. It's always been a god and virtual dollhouse game, where the aim has been to control your sims and play out scenarios with them like you would dolls or puppets.
The working title of The Sims was literally called "Dollhouse," and the very reason why the game has had a dollhouse object in every iteration since TS1 is as an in-joke and nod to Will Wright.
The walls of the houses "break away" exactly as a doll house would.
We have an immensely large storytelling community precisely because starting with TS1, players were encouraged by Maxis to make stories with their sims and post them online on The Exchange and on their own webpages.
But don't take my word for it:
Go figure. In 2002, everybody was calling The Sims a god game and virtual dollhouse, and they were still calling it that in 2009. Will Wright himself considered it a god game and virtual dollhouse. But I dunno. You're so intellectually superior; maybe everyone in the world, including Will Wright himself, has gotten this game's genre wrong for 17 years and you're the Enlightened, All Knowing Sage whose word we should be taking that it's a life simulator.
BTW, I'm not going to respond to any of the other stuff you posted. As old as I am, I'm positive that I have at least 20 years on you, at least--not just in age, but in terms of experience in and knowledge about the gaming industry and computers in general. So I don't know where you get off talking down to me in such a condescending manner but don't bother responding to me after this point because I won't be responding back.
My Sims 3 blog, Back to the Sims 3
Proof:
Edit to say that if the Sims is NOT a simulation game, then why is it classified as a simulation when looking it up on the Origin website? Wouldn't it be classified as something else then? And what would it be classified as if it's not a simulation game?
Edit again to say that we really don't need the name calling in here. Calling people "arrogant" goes against the forum rules as it is considered harassment.
http://store.thesims3.com/myWishlist.html?persona=lisasc360
My stories on this site:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/991317/my-sims-stories/p1?new=1
Note the second bold-italics quote... It was suggested to Wright that the game become a life-simulation. Hmmmm, let's see where EA places Sims 4 and Sims 3?
http://www2.ea.com/simulation
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~