So now people should research freebies?
"Oh no, my computer could have been downloading something else free while I was watching TV. Why didn't I spend time researching instead?"
No amount of research could prepare us for the flop we were about to receive. Plus most dedicated simmers would not want to believe that the sequel to their ever loving game would be a disappointment.
Now whenever someone says that TS4 could get better I pop up like
We should have known from the beginning because pre-launch there was a serious LACK of information. EA refused to let people preview the game. Should've been a sign right way ... almost like they knew what they were putting out was lousy.
I seriously might go install TS1 and play again. But it's probably not Windows 7 compatible!
So now people should research freebies?
"Oh no, my computer could have been downloading something else free while I was watching TV. Why didn't I spend time researching instead?"
More like "Oh no, I just wasted 8 hours downloading this when I could have been watching Netflix!"
No amount of research could prepare us for the flop we were about to receive. Plus most dedicated simmers would not want to believe that the sequel to their ever loving game would be a disappointment.
Now whenever someone says that TS4 could get better I pop up like
We should have known from the beginning because pre-launch there was a serious LACK of information. EA refused to let people preview the game. Should've been a sign right way ... almost like they knew what they were putting out was lousy.
I seriously might go install TS1 and play again. But it's probably not Windows 7 compatible!
I have Windows 7 and Sims 1 does work on it. You have to do some extra steps to make it work. Google it or find it on youtube. You shouldn't have too much trouble.
Also, this is Sims 1 of those old games you cannot tab/minimize (sort of) without crashing (at least, for me it does). So, if you want to play it, you need to play just that. (No tabbing out to an internet browser, for example.)
No amount of research could prepare us for the flop we were about to receive. Plus most dedicated simmers would not want to believe that the sequel to their ever loving game would be a disappointment.
Now whenever someone says that TS4 could get better I pop up like
We should have known from the beginning because pre-launch there was a serious LACK of information. EA refused to let people preview the game. Should've been a sign right way ... almost like they knew what they were putting out was lousy.
I seriously might go install TS1 and play again. But it's probably not Windows 7 compatible!
I have Windows 7 and Sims 1 does work on it. You have to do some extra steps to make it work. Google it or find it on youtube. You shouldn't have too much trouble.
Also, this is Sims 1 of those old games you cannot tab/minimize (sort of) without crashing (at least, for me it does). So, if you want to play it, you need to play just that. (No tabbing out to an internet browser, for example.)
When I had TS1 there was no need to ever minimize and do something else :-P
Ahhh, those were the good old days ... having to uninstall games from my computer to make space on the hard drive for TS1. I remember winning $50 from a contest in high school and using it to upgrade my computer to 512 MB of RAM so that more Townies would show up in Hot Date.
Anyone remember the FIASCO that was the Hot Date patch about bay windows and the "Old Prude" not showing up if the patch didn't have a super random amount of free hard drive space at install time?? It was something like, 568 MB.
No amount of research could prepare us for the flop we were about to receive. Plus most dedicated simmers would not want to believe that the sequel to their ever loving game would be a disappointment.
Now whenever someone says that TS4 could get better I pop up like
We should have known from the beginning because pre-launch there was a serious LACK of information. EA refused to let people preview the game. Should've been a sign right way ... almost like they knew what they were putting out was lousy.
I seriously might go install TS1 and play again. But it's probably not Windows 7 compatible!
I have Windows 7 and Sims 1 does work on it. You have to do some extra steps to make it work. Google it or find it on youtube. You shouldn't have too much trouble.
Also, this is Sims 1 of those old games you cannot tab/minimize (sort of) without crashing (at least, for me it does). So, if you want to play it, you need to play just that. (No tabbing out to an internet browser, for example.)
When I had TS1 there was no need to ever minimize and do something else :-P
Ahhh, those were the good old days ... having to uninstall games from my computer to make space on the hard drive for TS1. I remember winning $50 from a contest in high school and using it to upgrade my computer to 512 MB of RAM so that more Townies would show up in Hot Date.
Anyone remember the FIASCO that was the Hot Date patch about bay windows and the "Old Prude" not showing up if the patch didn't have a super random amount of free hard drive space at install time?? It was something like, 568 MB.
Lol, my dad got me a new computer last year, and I still don't have enough ram for this game, apparently. XD
Emotions can be over the top, and sometimes change too often. I had a couple times where the emotion lasted literally like 5 seconds or so. I directed a sim to do something based on their mood, and then it totally changed before they actually started doing what I instructed. It's just kind of annoying and frustrating.
It's almost impossible to get a sim to make a neutral expression, and when they do it's for like 3 seconds maybe. I want to be able to see my sims without the distortion of the facial expressions. The facial expressions tend to distort the sims faces and they all just look the same, so I don't know why I spend time making them look a certain way in CAS. Some of them are just too much for my tastes too, but I wouldn't mind so much if they had some more tamer expressions to balance it out.
The camera controls are really frustrating. I put it on TS3 camera but it doesn't work like the TS3 camera that much. I had to look up on google how to tilt the camera and it's really awkward and annoying. I can't just scroll on my touchpad to zoom in and out, and the camera loves to be zoomed way out so I'm always having to zoom in, I miss the ease of being able to scroll and zoom in. If I have my cursor too close to the edge of the screen when I go into tab mode I can't use my mouse to easily adjust the screen. And edge scrolling is too fussy, can't be too close to the edge for that either. Oh and I couldn't press "p" in tab mode to pause the game while grabbing screenshots, so I kept missing stuff... I realized "0" would work but I'm used to TS3 where I can and do us "p"... and I was expecting that with my camera set to TS3, especially since it works outside of tab mode.
Build mode frustrated me. I don't honestly find it that easy to use. I had trouble dragging some of the edges out on rooms and fountains, it just seemed awkward. And with the poor camera controls it's just too difficult to adjust and see what I'm even doing. I tried building a couple times and gave up quickly.
The clipping is annoying, it’s really bad. I like that sims don’t constantly stomp their feet and wave their arms because something is in the way, but a lot of the time my sims are standing through something or each other, and it’s not pretty to look at. It’s really just trading problems and both annoy me equally.
The worlds, even put together, are really small. Not many places to go, and not many lots to move into, which really is disappointing. I miss the open world, but I think I’d miss it less if there were more places to go in the game, at least it would be a nice trade-off for taking away open world.
The babies being an object sucks. The interactions with them are adorable, I love how they have adorable little limbs unlike TS3, and they wiggle them around and it’s just super adorable. I think the babies had a ton of potential but it’s wasted on them being treated as objects.
And as in 48 hours the town dies around my sim I miss story progression. I did have aging set to short, so that sped it up, but the worlds are so small and everybody was starting to die off on me. I played through a couple generations and it was starting to seem that everybody was getting to old for my younger generations to go out with (I generally like them to start in the same age range). I think I could fix this more in the full game when I have more time, but in the trial I was really noticing it.
I do love the multi-tasking and how sims can interact with somebody far away, or somebody standing while they sit. I like that they don’t have to be sitting next to each other, or standing close to each other and facing each other.
The interactions are, for the most part, nicer than in TS3 (though TS2 still beats both in that area) which is really nice. Though the kissing, why do sims lips not touch when they kiss? It found it kind of distracting from a sweet moment. Otherwise though, the interactions are nice.
I do like that this game seems less conservative I guess (I'm not sure it's the word I want), in that teens can mess around. Sims woohooing can have reactions/emotions about it. I feel like that wouldn’t have happened in TS3 even if it had the emotion system. It kind of felt like TS3 tried to avoid what might be too mature and controversial, but wasn't really, TS4 doesn’t seem to have that as much. It's kind of brought a bit of charm back that wasn't in TS3.
I do think the sims have more life and charm in them than they did before, though I’ve never had a problem with it before either, and that is nice in away but I feel they’re just kind of over the top at times, it needs to be toned down a bit and it would be perfect.
Overall, it’s not a horrible game, but is lacking. I do miss features that weren’t included in it, toddlers mainly. It has its rough points. It has good things too. I did feel it was a bit plain and boring, even for a base game. I have no life so I basically had as much of the 48 hours as I wanted to play, I still played a fair bit, but I spent a lot of time on forums, or playing other games, and I stopped playing the demo about 2 hours early because I had nothing much left to do. I did have a couple things I wanted to do but I needed a bit more time, and anything else to kill of the time I'd just done already, sometimes several times. Any of the previous games I think I would have used up every minute of that trial that I could and been sad when it was done.
I will not be spending the 60 or 70 (whatever it is) dollars on this game. I do like things about it, but it's lacking too much and I have too many complaints. I would probably get it for like 20. I see potential in this game, I just don't want to spend a lot of money hoping it will reach that potential. I hope it does, and if it does I'll give it another chance and possibly spend a bit more on it, but right now that's not going to happen.
I may add more later, I feel like I had more I wanted to say, but I've lost it now.
...is it weird that I'm feeling so depressed over a computer game? It feels like a part of me/my childhood has died, and they have tried to reincarnate it - and did a lousy job.
/endrant.
that's life, homie...ya win some, ya lose some...just letting go will do you wonders
Thank you OP for your detailed report of experiencing the Sims 4. I do understand your points and agree with most of those issues you pointed out, but do understand that including them in the game will not fix what's a problem for most simmers out there. First there needs to be a new motto other than it's too hard and expensive. Anything requiring new animations are not likely to be implemented in the game. We are not worth it.
Nothing to see. I don't even care about the forums.
...is it weird that I'm feeling so depressed over a computer game? It feels like a part of me/my childhood has died, and they have tried to reincarnate it - and did a lousy job.
I just need to quote this part because it describes how I'm feeling so well. This is the first base game where I haven't been simply amazed by the groundbreaking new foundation. With the Sims 2, I looked through the new neighborhoods for about forty minutes before actually playing the game. It was 3D! There were new ages! New stories, architecture, and the Sims can have unique faces! Such an advancement! There is more than one neighborhood! With the Sims 3, I couldn't believe that the Sims now had traits, actual specific traits, to give them a unique personality! The world was open! Crazy furniture and house designs were now everywhere with this new CASt!
But with The Sims 4, it was such a disappointment. Only two empty lots? The worlds are closed again? No CASt anymore? Smaller world? 4 community lots, each with objects I can already use in my own house? The world was pretty, but there wasn't much of a graphical improvement over the Sims 3. And everything looked too cemented in place for the possibility of placing new lots.
Then once I placed my Sim in one of the two starter homes, I looked around and just wondered, is there anything I can make my Sim do that I couldn't do before? The answer was a resounding no, unless you count the new loading screen they hit when visiting the vacant lot across the street, because honestly, there were only about five starting families, and most of them were hipster versions of Sims from last games with butchered stories.
I liked that there were around 10 Sims walking around my neighborhood, but I soon realized that they would be the only 10 Sims my Sim would see for the rest of their existence, following them from each neighborhood to the next as if they were stalking them.
My Sim continued to get a job as a musician, which sadly, wasn't its own career anymore (mixed with the much less professional stand-up comedian). She then continued to spend her days fulfilling her needs and practicing the violin for hours on end, just like the original Sims. She also sometimes talked to Katrina Caliente (the fake cougar) who seemed to take a liking to my Sim after talking to her once, visiting the house every day and waiting outside the front door.
Of course I knew a lot of things were missing before I received the game as a gift. This happens to all base games, although not nearly to the extent that it happened here. But The Sims 4 was the first iteration to not add enough things to make up for these losses. The new CAS is great, but it (obviously) doesn't affect gameplay. And the Sims look so much worse in game than when I'm making them. The emotions and multitasking already existed in the past games.
Multitasking is seriously broken. Sims like to randomly butt in to my conversations, romantic or not, and will multitask awkwardly to just show that they can do it. It breaks the immersion.
And with emotions? My Sim has a label now of how I could already infer they were feeling. And they have restricted actions because of it, with only a few new ones that are honestly not that interesting. Whoo!
Essay over.
ETA: I'm considering uninstalling it for The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. Thoughts on this?
Multitasking is seriously broken. Sims like to randomly butt in to my conversations, romantic or not, and will multitask awkwardly to just show that they can do it. It breaks the immersion.
Everything you said, everything, even though I was already an adult when the original game came out (wow am I feeling old now)...
Had to laugh at this one bit though as it reminded me of the last time I logged in, went to get my sim to pay the bills so she went to the mailbox with her dinner, ah yes, just another example of multitasking at it's finest.
...is it weird that I'm feeling so depressed over a computer game? It feels like a part of me/my childhood has died, and they have tried to reincarnate it - and did a lousy job.
ETA: I'm considering uninstalling it for The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. Thoughts on this?
I haven't played TS2 in forever! The computer that I used to play it on broke, and I have to go onto the old hard drive to get all my save data. I'd hate to have to "start over"!
Okay, so I just gave the game another hour. I enjoyed it a little more now that my sims had jobs and needed to build skills, etc. But, you're right, they're doing all the same things they could do before, except now they're talking a LOT and eating really slowly because of it.
Also, upgrade parts? What the heck do I do with those?!? (Obviously, I know I will use them to upgrade objects, but wonder how I will use them!) One of my favorite things to upgrade was the dishwasher to "silent running" and, well, ... we know how that will go now!
I also agree, I don't think the graphics are really much of an upgrade. They are gorgeous, but TS3 was gorgeous also.
I also feel sort of 🐸🐸🐸🐸: I waited for 5 years for EA to find a fix to the "invisible" Sims glitch from TS3, which they now clearly will never get to. It affected one of my sims in Barnacle Bay, and that whole save file got really screwy and I've been afraid to play it since then.
I can't believe they changed the opening music, too! After what, 8+ years with the same music from TS2 and TS3, now they change it to something else? Ugh!
If the game were reduced to $10 I would buy it. Maybe I should look for copies on eBay.
...is it weird that I'm feeling so depressed over a computer game? It feels like a part of me/my childhood has died, and they have tried to reincarnate it - and did a lousy job.
ETA: I'm considering uninstalling it for The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. Thoughts on this?
I haven't played TS2 in forever! The computer that I used to play it on broke, and I have to go onto the old hard drive to get all my save data. I'd hate to have to "start over"!
Okay, so I just gave the game another hour. I enjoyed it a little more now that my sims had jobs and needed to build skills, etc. But, you're right, they're doing all the same things they could do before, except now they're talking a LOT and eating really slowly because of it.
I also feel sort of 🐸🐸🐸🐸: I waited for 5 years for EA to find a fix to the "invisible" Sims glitch from TS3, which they now clearly will never get to. It affected one of my sims in Barnacle Bay, and that whole save file got really screwy and I've been afraid to play it since then.
I can't believe they changed the opening music, too! After what, 8+ years with the same music from TS2 and TS3, now they change it to something else? Ugh!
I can't believe I forgot the slow eating! That has been one of my main annoyances. The last time my Sim ate, it took almost six Sim hours! They spent about four of them staring into space (they weren't even multitasking).
My Sims 2 is on an old computer as well. However, there isn't much to go on if I recovered it because the game corrupted only a few months before The Sims 3 came out. I think it had too many mods and cc, which is why I practically avoided them in The Sims 3.
But I've missed it for a while (especially the music, which is so much better than The Sims 4), and the Ultimate Collection has been sitting in my Origin account since they gave it out for free in July.
About the invisible Sims glitch... It ruined some of my favorite, most played-on game files. And EA never fixed it. (I hope you don't mind. I cut some parts out of your quote to shorten my post.)
ETA: I had to post this twice, because the first time I tried, the thread had been deleted. Now it has been moved.
Another thing I wanted to point out... which of course now I forgot! EDIT: I remembered. The way the actions stack up in the lower left corner... first of all, I never remember to look there so I have no idea what my sims are doing. And second, the pictures/icons are really hard to see.
ALSO, I can't STAND that pressing the space bar doesn't jump you to that person's location! I never realized how many times I did that until it didn't work anymore!
I wonder if they will change anything based on this free trial. I feel like a lot of "old timers" like me are trying it out, and becoming disappointed.
I still can't help but think that the people who designed TS4 never played any of the others at all, a day in their life. Or they never would have done some of these things.
...is it weird that I'm feeling so depressed over a computer game? It feels like a part of me/my childhood has died, and they have tried to reincarnate it - and did a lousy job.
ETA: I'm considering uninstalling it for The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. Thoughts on this?
I haven't played TS2 in forever! The computer that I used to play it on broke, and I have to go onto the old hard drive to get all my save data. I'd hate to have to "start over"!
Okay, so I just gave the game another hour. I enjoyed it a little more now that my sims had jobs and needed to build skills, etc. But, you're right, they're doing all the same things they could do before, except now they're talking a LOT and eating really slowly because of it.
I also feel sort of 🐸🐸🐸🐸: I waited for 5 years for EA to find a fix to the "invisible" Sims glitch from TS3, which they now clearly will never get to. It affected one of my sims in Barnacle Bay, and that whole save file got really screwy and I've been afraid to play it since then.
I can't believe they changed the opening music, too! After what, 8+ years with the same music from TS2 and TS3, now they change it to something else? Ugh!
I can't believe I forgot the slow eating! That has been one of my main annoyances. The last time my Sim ate, it took almost six Sim hours! They spent about four of them staring into space (they weren't even multitasking).
My Sims 2 is on an old computer as well. However, there isn't much to go on if I recovered it because the game corrupted only a few months before The Sims 3 came out. I think it had too many mods and cc, which is why I practically avoided them in The Sims 3.
But I've missed it for a while (especially the music, which is so much better than The Sims 4), and the Ultimate Collection has been sitting in my Origin account since they gave it out for free in July.
About the invisible Sims glitch... It ruined some of my favorite, most played-on game files. And EA never fixed it. (I hope you don't mind. I cut some parts out of your quote to shorten my post.)
ETA: I had to post this twice, because the first time I tried, the thread had been deleted. Now it has been moved.
Seriously, how long does it take to eat a meal!! They stop to talk or, you're right, just stare into space! And I keep wondering what they are doing!
Well... Now I have finally played the Sims 4... and feel the same way I did before I played it.
I just reread my post from early october about my dislikes. They're the same still with a few more new ones. Back then my list was ... 1) I felt the game was now targeting very young simmers at the expense of old simmers. 2) The artstyle which I still don't like. 3) Loadscreens! 4) The animations and facial expressions. 5) The lack of proper life stages. 6) Having to rely on overpriced dlc.
I felt I needed cc skins, makeup, skin details to make the sims look less like plastic mannequins. And when there was a group of sims, it was obvious how same face they all were with the same happy creepy smiles. The bar for example was crowded with sims making the same faces all at the same. None of them seemed to actually get a drink they just gestured there, with frozen smiles.
I felt like the game was telling me how I should play the whole time. The tutorial still isn't over, I'm still getting the "helpful" tips.
There was lots of bugs. Cooking became impossible, as did washing the dishes. And many more bugs.
I wasn't asked what language I wanted to install in. The translation is horrible with nonsense words some of which don't describe the action accurately.
There's a lot of locked stuff. In buymode and interactions that only unlock if the emotion is right or if you skill up. I didn't like that. If I played I would have to get a mod for that.
Sims 4's selling points are supposed to be the new CAS with minimal sliders, buildmode improvements, multitasking and the "new" emotions. The changes in CAS and buildmode don't really matter to me. Some of the stuff in both was hard to figure out, such as building a fence or what point of manipulation is targeted in detailed mode and which isn't.
Multitasking is seriously broken. Sims like to randomly butt in to my conversations, romantic or not, and will multitask awkwardly to just show that they can do it. It breaks the immersion.
Everything you said, everything, even though I was already an adult when the original game came out (wow am I feeling old now)...
Had to laugh at this one bit though as it reminded me of the last time I logged in, went to get my sim to pay the bills so she went to the mailbox with her dinner, ah yes, just another example of multitasking at it's finest.
Yup, this kept happening. I played a household of 2-4 sims and it was so frustrating to get them to do things independently. Like going next door and having one talk to the lady next door while the other one argues with the male neighbor. That was impossible because it has to be a group conversation. Can't have one friendly conversation and one sim making a enemy. Musical chairs kept happening too.
I didn't bother to manipulate my sims emotions at all and I guess that why my female ya didn't get promoted while my other sim did because he just happened to often leave to work in the "correct" emotion. The sims felt bipolar sometimes and I didn't like how the environment and little decorations had so much influence on them.
I did like that there was a lot of interactions, but not that some were only renamed like "joke about chicken butt" etc. It's joking but the description keeps changing. I also liked the child stage. And that I could make my own custom memories which I did a lot.
But sill there are a lot of things I would change and I wouldn't buy TS4 unless it was like 75% off with free patched in toddlers and there was enough cc and mods out to completely change the look of the game and game play to less linear. I feel like there's less of everything that's important to me and the things that are there aren't that great.
Another thing I wanted to point out... which of course now I forgot! EDIT: I remembered. The way the actions stack up in the lower left corner... first of all, I never remember to look there so I have no idea what my sims are doing. And second, the pictures/icons are really hard to see.
ALSO, I can't STAND that pressing the space bar doesn't jump you to that person's location! I never realized how many times I did that until it didn't work anymore!
I wonder if they will change anything based on this free trial. I feel like a lot of "old timers" like me are trying it out, and becoming disappointed.
I still can't help but think that the people who designed TS4 never played any of the others at all, a day in their life. Or they never would have done some of these things.
Didn't pressing spacebar switch sims? it would jump you to the location of the sims you switched to, but it's purpose wasn't jumping to a sims location. Enter jumped to the sims location, and still does.
Well... Now I have finally played the Sims 4... and feel the same way I did before I played it.
I just reread my post from early october about my dislikes. They're the same still with a few more new ones. Back then my list was ... 1) I felt the game was now targeting very young simmers at the expense of old simmers. 2) The artstyle which I still don't like. 3) Loadscreens! 4) The animations and facial expressions. 5) The lack of proper life stages. 6) Having to rely on overpriced dlc.
I felt I needed cc skins, makeup, skin details to make the sims look less like plastic mannequins. And when there was a group of sims, it was obvious how same face they all were with the same happy creepy smiles. The bar for example was crowded with sims making the same faces all at the same. None of them seemed to actually get a drink they just gestured there, with frozen smiles.
I felt like the game was telling me how I should play the whole time. The tutorial still isn't over, I'm still getting the "helpful" tips.
There was lots of bugs. Cooking became impossible, as did washing the dishes. And many more bugs.
I wasn't asked what language I wanted to install in. The translation is horrible with nonsense words some of which don't describe the action accurately.
There's a lot of locked stuff. In buymode and interactions that only unlock if the emotion is right or if you skill up. I didn't like that. If I played I would have to get a mod for that.
Sims 4's selling points are supposed to be the new CAS with minimal sliders, buildmode improvements, multitasking and the "new" emotions. The changes in CAS and buildmode don't really matter to me. Some of the stuff in both was hard to figure out, such as building a fence or what point of manipulation is targeted in detailed mode and which isn't.
Multitasking is seriously broken. Sims like to randomly butt in to my conversations, romantic or not, and will multitask awkwardly to just show that they can do it. It breaks the immersion.
Everything you said, everything, even though I was already an adult when the original game came out (wow am I feeling old now)...
Had to laugh at this one bit though as it reminded me of the last time I logged in, went to get my sim to pay the bills so she went to the mailbox with her dinner, ah yes, just another example of multitasking at it's finest.
Yup, this kept happening. I played a household of 2-4 sims and it was so frustrating to get them to do things independently. Like going next door and having one talk to the lady next door while the other one argues with the male neighbor. That was impossible because it has to be a group conversation. Can't have one friendly conversation and one sim making a enemy. Musical chairs kept happening too.
I didn't bother to manipulate my sims emotions at all and I guess that why my female ya didn't get promoted while my other sim did because he just happened to often leave to work in the "correct" emotion. The sims felt bipolar sometimes and I didn't like how the environment and little decorations had so much influence on them.
I did like that there was a lot of interactions, but not that some were only renamed like "joke about chicken butt" etc. It's joking but the description keeps changing. I also liked the child stage. And that I could make my own custom memories which I did a lot.
But sill there are a lot of things I would change and I wouldn't buy TS4 unless it was like 75% off with free patched in toddlers and there was enough cc and mods out to completely change the look of the game and game play to less linear. I feel like there's less of everything that's important to me and the things that are there aren't that great.
THE TIPS! That was one I forgot. Those stupid tips. I was still getting them just before I exited the trial for the last time with 46 hours on it (not that I played all of them, but still I played enough in that 46 hours that they should have gone away) and sometimes I think it was the same ones popping up again. I was about to rage punch my laptop in the end because of them. They need to be able to be turned off. Dear god they're annoying.
THE TIPS! That was one I forgot. Those stupid tips. I was still getting them just before I exited the trial for the last time with 46 hours on it (not that I played all of them, but still I played enough in that 46 hours that they should have gone away) and sometimes I think it was the same ones popping up again. I was about to rage punch my laptop in the end because of them. They need to be able to be turned off. Dear god they're annoying.
Lol. At least the tutorial will end eventually but the achievement/work/school goals won't.
THE TIPS! That was one I forgot. Those stupid tips. I was still getting them just before I exited the trial for the last time with 46 hours on it (not that I played all of them, but still I played enough in that 46 hours that they should have gone away) and sometimes I think it was the same ones popping up again. I was about to rage punch my laptop in the end because of them. They need to be able to be turned off. Dear god they're annoying.
Lol. At least the tutorial will end eventually but the achievement/work/school goals won't.
Yes, those are the gameplay.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I hope that Maxis still reads the Ideas and Feedback sections and puts some ideas into production. Otherwise there is NO point in these threads if they didn't listen to us
And for me it is the other way around, I find the new one very clumsy...
I hate that I can't scroll places the curser goes if the UI is in the say... so at one moment I am moving about with the mouse and the next I have to use the keyboard. I hate that they split functions all over the place between the controls at the bottom and at the top right, there is no mode in the game where I can completely avoid needing both arggh.
Yep, this is what I have the most trouble with. I know they wanted to make the GUI "sleeker" by making it more streamlined, but it's made the game more difficult to manage, since the icons are so small.
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"Oh no, my computer could have been downloading something else free while I was watching TV. Why didn't I spend time researching instead?"
We should have known from the beginning because pre-launch there was a serious LACK of information. EA refused to let people preview the game. Should've been a sign right way ... almost like they knew what they were putting out was lousy.
I seriously might go install TS1 and play again. But it's probably not Windows 7 compatible!
More like "Oh no, I just wasted 8 hours downloading this when I could have been watching Netflix!"
I have Windows 7 and Sims 1 does work on it. You have to do some extra steps to make it work. Google it or find it on youtube. You shouldn't have too much trouble.
Also, this is Sims 1 of those old games you cannot tab/minimize (sort of) without crashing (at least, for me it does). So, if you want to play it, you need to play just that. (No tabbing out to an internet browser, for example.)
(She/her)
When I had TS1 there was no need to ever minimize and do something else :-P
Ahhh, those were the good old days ... having to uninstall games from my computer to make space on the hard drive for TS1. I remember winning $50 from a contest in high school and using it to upgrade my computer to 512 MB of RAM so that more Townies would show up in Hot Date.
Anyone remember the FIASCO that was the Hot Date patch about bay windows and the "Old Prude" not showing up if the patch didn't have a super random amount of free hard drive space at install time?? It was something like, 568 MB.
Lol, my dad got me a new computer last year, and I still don't have enough ram for this game, apparently. XD
(She/her)
Emotions can be over the top, and sometimes change too often. I had a couple times where the emotion lasted literally like 5 seconds or so. I directed a sim to do something based on their mood, and then it totally changed before they actually started doing what I instructed. It's just kind of annoying and frustrating.
It's almost impossible to get a sim to make a neutral expression, and when they do it's for like 3 seconds maybe. I want to be able to see my sims without the distortion of the facial expressions. The facial expressions tend to distort the sims faces and they all just look the same, so I don't know why I spend time making them look a certain way in CAS. Some of them are just too much for my tastes too, but I wouldn't mind so much if they had some more tamer expressions to balance it out.
The camera controls are really frustrating. I put it on TS3 camera but it doesn't work like the TS3 camera that much. I had to look up on google how to tilt the camera and it's really awkward and annoying. I can't just scroll on my touchpad to zoom in and out, and the camera loves to be zoomed way out so I'm always having to zoom in, I miss the ease of being able to scroll and zoom in. If I have my cursor too close to the edge of the screen when I go into tab mode I can't use my mouse to easily adjust the screen. And edge scrolling is too fussy, can't be too close to the edge for that either. Oh and I couldn't press "p" in tab mode to pause the game while grabbing screenshots, so I kept missing stuff... I realized "0" would work but I'm used to TS3 where I can and do us "p"... and I was expecting that with my camera set to TS3, especially since it works outside of tab mode.
Build mode frustrated me. I don't honestly find it that easy to use. I had trouble dragging some of the edges out on rooms and fountains, it just seemed awkward. And with the poor camera controls it's just too difficult to adjust and see what I'm even doing. I tried building a couple times and gave up quickly.
The clipping is annoying, it’s really bad. I like that sims don’t constantly stomp their feet and wave their arms because something is in the way, but a lot of the time my sims are standing through something or each other, and it’s not pretty to look at. It’s really just trading problems and both annoy me equally.
The worlds, even put together, are really small. Not many places to go, and not many lots to move into, which really is disappointing. I miss the open world, but I think I’d miss it less if there were more places to go in the game, at least it would be a nice trade-off for taking away open world.
The babies being an object sucks. The interactions with them are adorable, I love how they have adorable little limbs unlike TS3, and they wiggle them around and it’s just super adorable. I think the babies had a ton of potential but it’s wasted on them being treated as objects.
And as in 48 hours the town dies around my sim I miss story progression. I did have aging set to short, so that sped it up, but the worlds are so small and everybody was starting to die off on me. I played through a couple generations and it was starting to seem that everybody was getting to old for my younger generations to go out with (I generally like them to start in the same age range). I think I could fix this more in the full game when I have more time, but in the trial I was really noticing it.
I do love the multi-tasking and how sims can interact with somebody far away, or somebody standing while they sit. I like that they don’t have to be sitting next to each other, or standing close to each other and facing each other.
The interactions are, for the most part, nicer than in TS3 (though TS2 still beats both in that area) which is really nice. Though the kissing, why do sims lips not touch when they kiss? It found it kind of distracting from a sweet moment. Otherwise though, the interactions are nice.
I do like that this game seems less conservative I guess (I'm not sure it's the word I want), in that teens can mess around. Sims woohooing can have reactions/emotions about it. I feel like that wouldn’t have happened in TS3 even if it had the emotion system. It kind of felt like TS3 tried to avoid what might be too mature and controversial, but wasn't really, TS4 doesn’t seem to have that as much. It's kind of brought a bit of charm back that wasn't in TS3.
I do think the sims have more life and charm in them than they did before, though I’ve never had a problem with it before either, and that is nice in away but I feel they’re just kind of over the top at times, it needs to be toned down a bit and it would be perfect.
Overall, it’s not a horrible game, but is lacking. I do miss features that weren’t included in it, toddlers mainly. It has its rough points. It has good things too. I did feel it was a bit plain and boring, even for a base game. I have no life so I basically had as much of the 48 hours as I wanted to play, I still played a fair bit, but I spent a lot of time on forums, or playing other games, and I stopped playing the demo about 2 hours early because I had nothing much left to do. I did have a couple things I wanted to do but I needed a bit more time, and anything else to kill of the time I'd just done already, sometimes several times. Any of the previous games I think I would have used up every minute of that trial that I could and been sad when it was done.
I will not be spending the 60 or 70 (whatever it is) dollars on this game. I do like things about it, but it's lacking too much and I have too many complaints. I would probably get it for like 20. I see potential in this game, I just don't want to spend a lot of money hoping it will reach that potential. I hope it does, and if it does I'll give it another chance and possibly spend a bit more on it, but right now that's not going to happen.
I may add more later, I feel like I had more I wanted to say, but I've lost it now.
Just editing for spelling/grammar.
I much prefer to play games on a desktop, way more comfortable to sit at a desk than on my couch!
that's life, homie...ya win some, ya lose some...just letting go will do you wonders
I just need to quote this part because it describes how I'm feeling so well. This is the first base game where I haven't been simply amazed by the groundbreaking new foundation. With the Sims 2, I looked through the new neighborhoods for about forty minutes before actually playing the game. It was 3D! There were new ages! New stories, architecture, and the Sims can have unique faces! Such an advancement! There is more than one neighborhood! With the Sims 3, I couldn't believe that the Sims now had traits, actual specific traits, to give them a unique personality! The world was open! Crazy furniture and house designs were now everywhere with this new CASt!
But with The Sims 4, it was such a disappointment. Only two empty lots? The worlds are closed again? No CASt anymore? Smaller world? 4 community lots, each with objects I can already use in my own house? The world was pretty, but there wasn't much of a graphical improvement over the Sims 3. And everything looked too cemented in place for the possibility of placing new lots.
Then once I placed my Sim in one of the two starter homes, I looked around and just wondered, is there anything I can make my Sim do that I couldn't do before? The answer was a resounding no, unless you count the new loading screen they hit when visiting the vacant lot across the street, because honestly, there were only about five starting families, and most of them were hipster versions of Sims from last games with butchered stories.
I liked that there were around 10 Sims walking around my neighborhood, but I soon realized that they would be the only 10 Sims my Sim would see for the rest of their existence, following them from each neighborhood to the next as if they were stalking them.
My Sim continued to get a job as a musician, which sadly, wasn't its own career anymore (mixed with the much less professional stand-up comedian). She then continued to spend her days fulfilling her needs and practicing the violin for hours on end, just like the original Sims. She also sometimes talked to Katrina Caliente (the fake cougar) who seemed to take a liking to my Sim after talking to her once, visiting the house every day and waiting outside the front door.
Of course I knew a lot of things were missing before I received the game as a gift. This happens to all base games, although not nearly to the extent that it happened here. But The Sims 4 was the first iteration to not add enough things to make up for these losses. The new CAS is great, but it (obviously) doesn't affect gameplay. And the Sims look so much worse in game than when I'm making them. The emotions and multitasking already existed in the past games.
Multitasking is seriously broken. Sims like to randomly butt in to my conversations, romantic or not, and will multitask awkwardly to just show that they can do it. It breaks the immersion.
And with emotions? My Sim has a label now of how I could already infer they were feeling. And they have restricted actions because of it, with only a few new ones that are honestly not that interesting. Whoo!
Essay over.
ETA: I'm considering uninstalling it for The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. Thoughts on this?
Everything you said, everything, even though I was already an adult when the original game came out (wow am I feeling old now)...
Had to laugh at this one bit though as it reminded me of the last time I logged in, went to get my sim to pay the bills so she went to the mailbox with her dinner, ah yes, just another example of multitasking at it's finest.
I haven't played TS2 in forever! The computer that I used to play it on broke, and I have to go onto the old hard drive to get all my save data. I'd hate to have to "start over"!
Okay, so I just gave the game another hour. I enjoyed it a little more now that my sims had jobs and needed to build skills, etc. But, you're right, they're doing all the same things they could do before, except now they're talking a LOT and eating really slowly because of it.
Also, upgrade parts? What the heck do I do with those?!? (Obviously, I know I will use them to upgrade objects, but wonder how I will use them!) One of my favorite things to upgrade was the dishwasher to "silent running" and, well, ... we know how that will go now!
I also agree, I don't think the graphics are really much of an upgrade. They are gorgeous, but TS3 was gorgeous also.
I also feel sort of 🐸🐸🐸🐸: I waited for 5 years for EA to find a fix to the "invisible" Sims glitch from TS3, which they now clearly will never get to. It affected one of my sims in Barnacle Bay, and that whole save file got really screwy and I've been afraid to play it since then.
I can't believe they changed the opening music, too! After what, 8+ years with the same music from TS2 and TS3, now they change it to something else? Ugh!
If the game were reduced to $10 I would buy it. Maybe I should look for copies on eBay.
I can't believe I forgot the slow eating! That has been one of my main annoyances. The last time my Sim ate, it took almost six Sim hours! They spent about four of them staring into space (they weren't even multitasking).
My Sims 2 is on an old computer as well. However, there isn't much to go on if I recovered it because the game corrupted only a few months before The Sims 3 came out. I think it had too many mods and cc, which is why I practically avoided them in The Sims 3.
But I've missed it for a while (especially the music, which is so much better than The Sims 4), and the Ultimate Collection has been sitting in my Origin account since they gave it out for free in July.
About the invisible Sims glitch... It ruined some of my favorite, most played-on game files. And EA never fixed it.
ETA: I had to post this twice, because the first time I tried, the thread had been deleted. Now it has been moved.
Another thing I wanted to point out... which of course now I forgot! EDIT: I remembered. The way the actions stack up in the lower left corner... first of all, I never remember to look there so I have no idea what my sims are doing. And second, the pictures/icons are really hard to see.
ALSO, I can't STAND that pressing the space bar doesn't jump you to that person's location! I never realized how many times I did that until it didn't work anymore!
I wonder if they will change anything based on this free trial. I feel like a lot of "old timers" like me are trying it out, and becoming disappointed.
I still can't help but think that the people who designed TS4 never played any of the others at all, a day in their life. Or they never would have done some of these things.
Seriously, how long does it take to eat a meal!! They stop to talk or, you're right, just stare into space! And I keep wondering what they are doing!
I know! I miss having a desktop computer so much
I just reread my post from early october about my dislikes. They're the same still with a few more new ones. Back then my list was ... 1) I felt the game was now targeting very young simmers at the expense of old simmers. 2) The artstyle which I still don't like. 3) Loadscreens! 4) The animations and facial expressions. 5) The lack of proper life stages. 6) Having to rely on overpriced dlc.
I felt I needed cc skins, makeup, skin details to make the sims look less like plastic mannequins. And when there was a group of sims, it was obvious how same face they all were with the same happy creepy smiles. The bar for example was crowded with sims making the same faces all at the same. None of them seemed to actually get a drink they just gestured there, with frozen smiles.
I felt like the game was telling me how I should play the whole time. The tutorial still isn't over, I'm still getting the "helpful" tips.
There was lots of bugs. Cooking became impossible, as did washing the dishes. And many more bugs.
I wasn't asked what language I wanted to install in. The translation is horrible with nonsense words some of which don't describe the action accurately.
There's a lot of locked stuff. In buymode and interactions that only unlock if the emotion is right or if you skill up. I didn't like that. If I played I would have to get a mod for that.
Sims 4's selling points are supposed to be the new CAS with minimal sliders, buildmode improvements, multitasking and the "new" emotions. The changes in CAS and buildmode don't really matter to me. Some of the stuff in both was hard to figure out, such as building a fence or what point of manipulation is targeted in detailed mode and which isn't. Yup, this kept happening. I played a household of 2-4 sims and it was so frustrating to get them to do things independently. Like going next door and having one talk to the lady next door while the other one argues with the male neighbor. That was impossible because it has to be a group conversation. Can't have one friendly conversation and one sim making a enemy. Musical chairs kept happening too.
I didn't bother to manipulate my sims emotions at all and I guess that why my female ya didn't get promoted while my other sim did because he just happened to often leave to work in the "correct" emotion. The sims felt bipolar sometimes and I didn't like how the environment and little decorations had so much influence on them.
I did like that there was a lot of interactions, but not that some were only renamed like "joke about chicken butt" etc. It's joking but the description keeps changing. I also liked the child stage. And that I could make my own custom memories which I did a lot.
But sill there are a lot of things I would change and I wouldn't buy TS4 unless it was like 75% off with free patched in toddlers and there was enough cc and mods out to completely change the look of the game and game play to less linear. I feel like there's less of everything that's important to me and the things that are there aren't that great.
Didn't pressing spacebar switch sims? it would jump you to the location of the sims you switched to, but it's purpose wasn't jumping to a sims location. Enter jumped to the sims location, and still does.
THE TIPS! That was one I forgot. Those stupid tips. I was still getting them just before I exited the trial for the last time with 46 hours on it (not that I played all of them, but still I played enough in that 46 hours that they should have gone away) and sometimes I think it was the same ones popping up again. I was about to rage punch my laptop in the end because of them. They need to be able to be turned off. Dear god they're annoying.
Lol. At least the tutorial will end eventually but the achievement/work/school goals won't.
Yes, those are the gameplay.
Yep, this is what I have the most trouble with. I know they wanted to make the GUI "sleeker" by making it more streamlined, but it's made the game more difficult to manage, since the icons are so small.