I should have taken the blue pill...

brainybee

[Edit: for a little clarity (and maybe because ppl may have turned off my super on-point .gif)

Honestly, this is not intended to be an "I hate TS4" vs. "I love TS4" thread. I am not rehashing the pros and cons of the features that we have talked about endlessly for months. I am a person who actually likes the game (more or less), sees potentional, and has decided I am willing to go along for the ride. Maybe I'll start with a question this time]

I'm wondering if anyone has been experiencing a similar situation. For me, "immersion" is really hard to maintain this time around. It's not just the loading screens. The programming and game mechanics jump out at me a little too much while I am trying hard to focus on "believing" these pixels are people living in their own world. Even with their more expressive faces and body animations. Even with their "emotions."

I don't like that I can see the pattern and how's of things - even without going into the coding. I don't want to give concrete examples right off the bat in case some other players haven't noticed the things I might mention. I don't want to spoil those elements of the game for them. But one example I will give here at the beginning, since it is talked about so much, is how the game generates NPCs. In my game, many times the same Sims walk by my house. The same Sims hang out in the park. I don't see my homeless NPC street Sims in the park or vice versa. It begins to feel a little "Matrix"-y to me.

I do think that the places the game is sectioned off do make some of these things stand out even more. I just don't remember some of this being so obvious in other iterations of the game. I don't remember ever seeing so much talk about the way the game is coded by the devs (and even PR reps) as this time around (maybe because the choices they made have had so much impact on what players don't like about the game?). I am hoping that more of this stuff can melt into the background as the game gets updated and we get expansions. Has anyone else had these moments in-game? What do you guys think?

LatteCrab

I think that I would have taken the Blue pill, because it's my favorite color, lol!

Ok, seriously, I had kept tabs on Sims 4 for a long time now.
I've had to accept it's not quite the way I envisioned it would be, or wanted to be, but can only hope it moves along in a better way, later.
So, for now, I have held off buying it, until it's more in the price range I feel it's worth "for me".

I know not everyone values things the same, so of course, I can only rely on MY opinion of "value", not others
(except as a bit of a generalization guideline).

That being said, I AM very happy to have not only pools, but ones that will be able to be made in different depths (I've always wanted that).

I just hope that I won't go completely bonkers at the loading screens, and that many game bugs/glitches, will be fixed, by the time I do buy it.
After all, we should not have so many bugs/routing/glitches, since we supposedly "gave up things" for a "smoother game"...

Biotic_Warlock

I was a bit confused as to what you are saying is the red or blue pill.
Are you saying accepting the reality, or living in the belief that things are as you think they should be? o.O

brainybee

Thanks for responding, @SimplySimazing. I am not really talking about the quality of the game or feeling like I was trying to be tricked into buying the game. I'm talking more about how the game "works." For instance, @Kelly_Blake, in my game, many times the same Sims walk by my house. The same Sims hang out in the park. I don't see my homeless NPC street Sims in the park or vice versa. It begins to feel a little "Matrix"-y to me.

LatteCrab

brainybee wrote: »

I'm talking more about how the game "works." For instance, in my game, many times the same Sims walk by my house. The same Sims hang out in the park. I don't see my homeless NPC street Sims in the park or vise versa. It begins to feel a little "Matrix"-y to me.

oh no....either that will get monotonously boring or....that's creepy!..
and my family has watched those movies IRL, so many times, I don't want it in Sims..
But, then again, that might actually be a bit funny, story-wise, for Sims movies-makers..I can see it now, all those Smiths...Neo..., LOOOL!

DillynJames

I actually re-installed Sims 3 and a couple towns I had before. I didn't think the loading screens would bother me that much in The Sims 4, but they do.
The Sims 4 just doesn't feel very authentic to me. It feels like Sims 2 for console, or even a tablet game. So I'm back to Sims 3 for a while until The Sims 4 steps up its game.

Goldmoldar

I think I know what you are talking about, as far as immersion goes loading screens diminishes it for me even if it loads quickly and the same characters that run or walk by your house are programmed into the game to show there is some life even though it does not program thousands of sims that could possibly run or walk by your sims house. But how you interact with Sims 4 is up to the user and Sims 4 is shorted because people with low end computers cannot process higher levels of programming and in the long run those with high end computers are handicapped because of this and only get a few perks for playing on a high end computer, Sims 4 to me is fun in short spurts

Crackseed

I don't quite get the "Whoa, deja-vu" feel myself but I do understand the "closed in/shuttered" feeling you're talking about.

The game feels pretty alive in terms of the Sims themselves, their actions, and the neighborhood being busy. For my Sim right now in Oasis Springs, I swear it's a veritable crossroads of recognized and new townie/homeless ones always going by.

What I don't like is that to traverse around or "Free my mind" - I have to slam into a loading screen EVERYTIME I go out my front door for the most part. They need to peel back the neighborhood houses from being load-screen locked AND the community lots need to be one continuous block instead of "I'm done exercising, Ima get a drink!" *PLEASE HOLD WHILE LOADING THE BAR RIGHT NEXT DOOR* thing that goes on now.

So I'm happy I took the red pill, but it has some caveats. Like those 🐸🐸🐸🐸 bowls of snot I have to eat for breakfast (loading screens) >.>

Jimboola11

Increasingly it is feeling like a 'guilded cage' set in a town that is slowly dying. While I get the 'matrix-y' sims walking past all the time I notice that in my 'world' only one other house is now occupied. Actually two others are, but only by ghosts.

And I use the term 'world' loosely. In no way does it feel connected as a world to me. We have two worlds, but basically they are two collections of lots with the same coloured dirt. That's it.

Trowicia

Crackseed wrote: »

The game feels pretty alive in terms of the Sims themselves, their actions, and the neighborhood being busy. For my Sim right now in Oasis Springs, I swear it's a veritable crossroads of recognized and new townie/homeless ones always going by.

This is something the Gurus preached on and on and on about pre-release, we now understand and experienced how much work they put into the sims theirselves. Some things are still lacking, obviously, but the feeling is definitely there.

That being said I can only hope this mean they'll begin focusing on getting rid of that horrible paper "city backdrop" as well as expand on the neighborhoods/add new worlds. Maybe slightly reduce amount of loading screens by at least letting us freely visit our neighbors/next door community lots/venues.