They are nice, but they feel so limited after what we had in TS3.
Windenburg is pretty nice and so is Oasis Springs but .. yeah. Could be better. More lots and bigger "sanboxes". Not just some to live on but also some to explore.
I'd also love them to put more effort into the premade sims. In TS2 they all had their own stories and in Sims 3 they at least made some funny neighbors who all had their unique personality and theme.
But in TS4 .... Windenburg premade Sims are ok but apart from that it feels like they put 0 effort into the premades. Don is said to have a romantic relationship with Katrina but they just barely know each other, the Pancakes are supposed to go through a rough time but their relationship is pretty normal. Etc. etc.
I'd LOVE a dark neighborhood ala Midnight Hollow/ Moonlight Falls/Dragon Valley. And I'd LOVE it to come with some crazy, strange inhibitants ala Strangetown.
Something tropical would be cool aswell (Sunlit Tides/Lucky Palms/Isla Paradiso, something featuring native Island inhabitants and people spending their vacation there), or something like Barnacle Bay, which, even if it wasn't the most detailed neighborhood, was still extremely atmospheric, especially since it had all of those pirate sims. Or a swamp valley a la Twinbrooks with a lot of rednecks. Or maybe a country-side world like Riverview, featuring all sorts of unique sims, like farmer familys, a hermit living in the wood or a gangster legace like the Bagleys.
The worlds look nice but they lack ... LIFE, something both TS2 and TS3 worlds provided.
I like all the Worlds and I'm glad they gave ups an empty one to grow into.
I think with the population cap, though, they've kinda painted themselves into a corner. They can't give ups new, populated Worlds without pushing our population limits over the top and setting of Sim culling.
I play in NC. I prefer to plop down starter homes, park, library, gym/spa and one club/hangout type lot. I plop families in them before I move my Sim in so I can be welcomed with fruitcake
I don't find my self immersed in any of them except Windenburg.
The others are just locations for my sims homes and I don't pay the surrounding area much attention.
Despite the parade of Sims roaming around, everything feels artificial and simple window dressing.
But there is something about Windenburg. I enjoy having mys sims roam around in it.
I just wish I had the ability to edit TS4 worlds and that the sims have a purpose for being where they are and that I could see sims who live in the neighborhood coming and going form their homes and using objects on their property. They should also be getting visitors and when I go visit the house as well, that visitor should be there. This would give the worlds more life.
I really miss that @CK213 I always watched for the sim neighbors to come home, look in the windows and try to catch my sims fiancee flirting with another one, but NO they took that away in Sims3 (it was there, then it disappeared) now you look in a window and see nothing, no furniture or anything. They go in the front door and become invisible just like going to work in Sims4. I had a blast just spying on the sims back then, but in Sims4 you can't see anything
Windenburg has definitely been the best so far, but all the worlds are still too small. And now we have the new 64x64 lot, but only a couple that are already occupied. Newcrest and Magnolia Promenade have both been meh to me.
I'm worried about how many worlds we'll get in the future. We keep getting new lots and venues to place, but many people are quickly running out of areas to place them. I really want some variety, like a city, tropical island, a rural town, etc. I'd love for a CAW tool but I'm doubtful it'll ever happen.
I think I like WB best of TS4's worlds. Can't call them a world way too small. But I enjoy sending my Sims far away from their houses to scot around areas and them having a very long way back to the house. It sort of annoys me they can walk right up to the property line (after traveling for miles through the woods in WB) to their house or someone else's house (on the island) but then a loading screen. But I enjoy the portals are much farther away than just the end of a sidewalk. The openness of WB is probably better than in any of them. (Openness meaning they have farther to go and don't feel that cramped) but the lack of ability to change anything like lots sizes, placing empty lots ourselves etc. is annoying as all get out.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I can't conceive of them as worlds...way too small. I see them as neighborhoods. For some reason I can play for hours with the loading screens of TS2 and not feel claustrophobic but TS4 makes me feel that way. Someone suggested that it might be the back drop and it could be. The backdrops drive me crazy. I was almost ready to like WIndenburg but the fact that we have no sort of world editor killed it for me. I was building on a lot that had a fence outside of the lot and I wanted to remove it....sigh...no luck. WC is just too pink for me and OS is too bright. After living in an actual desert and seeing the beautiful subtle colors of the desert it just comes off as garish.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
I can't conceive of them as worlds...way too small. I see them as neighborhoods. For some reason I can play for hours with the loading screens of TS2 and not feel claustrophobic but TS4 makes me feel that way. Someone suggested that it might be the back drop and it could be. The backdrops drive me crazy.
The void with hints of the lots around you in TS2 was all real.
The backdrops in TS4 are all fake, unplayable, just FX, since they had an entire army of FX monkeysgrunts artists.
Waste of resources. Besides, instead of bothering with that, and making the drapes move back and forth like every house has a draft, why not make hair/clothing move around? I would have preferred small detail like that over cardboard cutout backgrounds and a non-interactive trolley.
I think the worlds in the Sims 4 are okay, but at the same time so limited, I have to go back to the Sims 2, just so I can add the homes and such I want and not have to worry about which house or place to take out to do so, it is sad that I do have to go back to the older games, to make myself feel better, cause Sims 4 only frustrates me at this point, but I am hoping it gets a lot better, if not then I give up, nothing more then I can do on My end about it.
I actually like exploring the worlds in this game. Willow creek is pretty and green...and I absolutely love playing in the neighborhood with the steamboat! I haven't played that much in Oasis Springs, though, but I really love the caves and now that I've figured out just the right graphical settings to allow me to keep view distance on high without creating any potential drama for my computer...well, I'm looking quite forward to doing more out there as well in a future save. Newcrest is just O.K. to me, though. Maybe it's just the lack of a hidden area or the fact that it's just Willow Creek with a more urban flavor, but it's just not as interesting as the other two base game worlds.
I just got Outdoor Retreat this weekend, and I'm planning on exploring Granite Falls some time later. I just can't wait to see what the place has in store, because I've seen some pretty awesome screenshots! Also, I can't wait to get Get Together and explore Windenburg! A whole European-inspired area to check out...? I'm excited! Especially since, in real life, I've never traveled outside of the U.S. before.
TS4 worlds are generally more detailed, pretty and scripted than TS3. It comes at the cost of customization. Windenburg is the only world I'm really happy with since it offers a large variety and lots of detail. My ideal next world would be a tropical oceanfront city with a Miami vibe (neon lights at night!) It could also have a little tropical island neighborhood. This way it would help fill the tropical/city/beach vibes we are missing.
In general, I like how they each have a slightly different feel, they're not tooooo samey and they feel like they kind of connect, like you could drive for a few miles and reach another world. So, Willow Creek feels like a suburb, and Newcrest feels like it's closer to the city. Then there's an area in Newcrest that looks like it looks out towards Granite Falls. I like this feeling of different but interconnected hoods and I hope it continues. For example, I can see snowy mountains in the distance in Windenberg, and I'd love a ski resort vacation destination at some point. And of course, I'd like to be able to visit that city I can see in Newcrest.
I would like MORE diversity too. I'd love more variety of places, especially interesting 'exotic' or a variety of cultural representations. I have sims from many different backgrounds, they have all 'moved' to the existing worlds but it would be great to have places for them to go and visit their relatives 'back home'. I've always loved content that gives us this kind of diversity, I loved World Adventures for this reason, and worlds like Sunlit Tides, Aurora Skies, and Monte Vista.
What I hope from future worlds are:
* Big open areas to explore, so it feels like we have a lot of open space. Good examples of this would be the large open area of Granite Falls, and there is an area in Windenberg which felt HUGE when I first started to explore it (the area in the top left of the map, where the country pub is located).
* Lots of things to do in the open areas, so I have things to do without having to go through a loading screen. I like the community gardens, areas to fish, places to picnic, and places to take my yoga mat or portable easel. More interactive world objects would be great, if they can think of things that suit the theme. But I particularly like having objects my sims can carry about and use anywhere, like the portable dj booth for a pop-up party!
* LOTS of collectables and harvestables. One thing I really liked about World Adventures was that each world had collectables and harvestables that were specific to them and couldn't be found easily elsewhere. It gives you a reason to visit these places with different sims. So Shang Sim La (Egypt) had crocodiles, lapis lazuli, copper, and pomegranates. Champs Les Sims (France) had several new grapes for nectar making, snails, and I think it was amethyst. And Shang Sim La (China) had Koi fish, jade, and pomelos. I like how these unique collectables make a world feel fuller and more culturally specific. And I just really like collectables. XD I'd love more variety of flowers.
* I'm not too keen on the very large lots, they seem to be more demanding on my computer, and I just... prefer smaller lots! I'd be fine with one large lot in my town. Then I'd like a mix of middle-sized and smaller lots. I do really like the very small lots, and I tend to use the smallest lots for residential builds, and the middle-sized lots for community builds. The largest lots I prefer to have as parks or some kind of pre-built community lot, where it makes sense to have a large open area.
* Enough empty residential or blank lots. 'Starter' lots. I found that I had to evict some pre-mades from Windenberg to fit my own sims in, and I really hate to evict premades, or demolish nice buildings. :-(
* Each area within each world should have a different feel. They are doing this well with the current worlds! I like how in Willow Creek there is a slightly poorer almost industrial area, and richer areas, and a 'town' area. I like that in Newcrest there is a 'posh' end and at the other end it feels like it's closer to an older part of the city. In Oasis Springs there is the poorer dusty area, then a step-up to the greener 1950's style area. Then there are the rich houses on the other side. I like how each world has an overall theme, but then this breaks down into sub-theme that still feel like they are part of the larger world. They are doing this very well.
My main problem is that I run out of room for what I want to do. I don't mean space in general, but room within the sub-areas I mentioned above. There are some areas I haven't really touched yet and other areas which I have stuffed full already! An example of each would be the 1950's style family home area I mentioned above (which I've only just started to use) and the top end of Newcrest which I've jam-packed with mixed purpose lots already. What I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED them desperately to do is make it easier to run these multi purpose lots. To add a way to rent out rooms, or to add apartments. To be able to run a retail business from home. To be able to rent spaces on community lots, so I can have several business owners on one lot, or be able to rent an apartment above a shop. At the moment I'm having to jump through hoops to try and achieve this. I don't mind jam-packing stuff into the available lots in an area, but I need more tools to do it. I like the feeling of having a lot of space for richer sims, and having the poorer sims crushed in close together because it feels realistic.
Another feature I'd like to make me happier with the way worlds in TS4 work is to be able to own multiple lots, and to be able to own a variety of lots. I guess I'm asking for a real estate feature here. I'd like to be able to own a second home at vacation destinations, for example. Maybe a rich sim might have a holiday home at Granite Falls. Or they might like an apartment in Newcrest for the business week, but go home to their family in Willow Creek at the weekend. Features like this would allow me to make more use out of the available spaces, and use them in the way I want to.
Windenburg is beautiful, but I can't stand the neighborhood design for the Sims 4. I mean it is not even open subhoods at least. It is like going back in time to Sims 1 neighborhoods again. I miss the creative freedom I used to have with towns like I did with the Sims 2 and 3. It is like taking five steps back with the "hoods" of the Sims 4. Honestly they aren't even large enough to call worlds. They are Sims 1 sized neighborhoods. It actually feels like the Sims are on the Truman Show set. So it feels really confined and staged like a sitcom show. I guess that makes sense since some of the Maxis heads called the game "less of a life simulation game and more about drama" and kind of compared it to a sitcom.
I do think having an Australian inspired town would be cool though.
Post edited by Scobre on
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
To me they are not worlds but small plots with different themed backdrops and props. They have none of the customization of Sims 3 because you are basically stuck with the design of the fake houses and world around you. Pretty pictures but that's all they are.
Comments
Windenburg is pretty nice and so is Oasis Springs but .. yeah. Could be better. More lots and bigger "sanboxes". Not just some to live on but also some to explore.
I'd also love them to put more effort into the premade sims. In TS2 they all had their own stories and in Sims 3 they at least made some funny neighbors who all had their unique personality and theme.
But in TS4 .... Windenburg premade Sims are ok but apart from that it feels like they put 0 effort into the premades. Don is said to have a romantic relationship with Katrina but they just barely know each other, the Pancakes are supposed to go through a rough time but their relationship is pretty normal. Etc. etc.
I'd LOVE a dark neighborhood ala Midnight Hollow/ Moonlight Falls/Dragon Valley. And I'd LOVE it to come with some crazy, strange inhibitants ala Strangetown.
Something tropical would be cool aswell (Sunlit Tides/Lucky Palms/Isla Paradiso, something featuring native Island inhabitants and people spending their vacation there), or something like Barnacle Bay, which, even if it wasn't the most detailed neighborhood, was still extremely atmospheric, especially since it had all of those pirate sims. Or a swamp valley a la Twinbrooks with a lot of rednecks. Or maybe a country-side world like Riverview, featuring all sorts of unique sims, like farmer familys, a hermit living in the wood or a gangster legace like the Bagleys.
The worlds look nice but they lack ... LIFE, something both TS2 and TS3 worlds provided.
I think with the population cap, though, they've kinda painted themselves into a corner. They can't give ups new, populated Worlds without pushing our population limits over the top and setting of Sim culling.
Annette Thayer butts heads with the late Eric Lewis on her first day as steward.
I think all the worlds are beautiful in this game
The others are just locations for my sims homes and I don't pay the surrounding area much attention.
Despite the parade of Sims roaming around, everything feels artificial and simple window dressing.
But there is something about Windenburg. I enjoy having mys sims roam around in it.
I just wish I had the ability to edit TS4 worlds and that the sims have a purpose for being where they are and that I could see sims who live in the neighborhood coming and going form their homes and using objects on their property. They should also be getting visitors and when I go visit the house as well, that visitor should be there. This would give the worlds more life.
* I was not a peeping tom *
I'm worried about how many worlds we'll get in the future. We keep getting new lots and venues to place, but many people are quickly running out of areas to place them. I really want some variety, like a city, tropical island, a rural town, etc. I'd love for a CAW tool but I'm doubtful it'll ever happen.
Waste of resources. Besides, instead of bothering with that, and making the drapes move back and forth like every house has a draft, why not make hair/clothing move around? I would have preferred small detail like that over cardboard cutout backgrounds and a non-interactive trolley.
I just got Outdoor Retreat this weekend, and I'm planning on exploring Granite Falls some time later. I just can't wait to see what the place has in store, because I've seen some pretty awesome screenshots! Also, I can't wait to get Get Together and explore Windenburg! A whole European-inspired area to check out...? I'm excited! Especially since, in real life, I've never traveled outside of the U.S. before.
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I mean the Goths live in a shed compared to their massive castle they had in TS3!
In general, I like how they each have a slightly different feel, they're not tooooo samey and they feel like they kind of connect, like you could drive for a few miles and reach another world. So, Willow Creek feels like a suburb, and Newcrest feels like it's closer to the city. Then there's an area in Newcrest that looks like it looks out towards Granite Falls. I like this feeling of different but interconnected hoods and I hope it continues. For example, I can see snowy mountains in the distance in Windenberg, and I'd love a ski resort vacation destination at some point. And of course, I'd like to be able to visit that city I can see in Newcrest.
I would like MORE diversity too. I'd love more variety of places, especially interesting 'exotic' or a variety of cultural representations. I have sims from many different backgrounds, they have all 'moved' to the existing worlds but it would be great to have places for them to go and visit their relatives 'back home'. I've always loved content that gives us this kind of diversity, I loved World Adventures for this reason, and worlds like Sunlit Tides, Aurora Skies, and Monte Vista.
What I hope from future worlds are:
* Big open areas to explore, so it feels like we have a lot of open space. Good examples of this would be the large open area of Granite Falls, and there is an area in Windenberg which felt HUGE when I first started to explore it (the area in the top left of the map, where the country pub is located).
* Lots of things to do in the open areas, so I have things to do without having to go through a loading screen. I like the community gardens, areas to fish, places to picnic, and places to take my yoga mat or portable easel. More interactive world objects would be great, if they can think of things that suit the theme. But I particularly like having objects my sims can carry about and use anywhere, like the portable dj booth for a pop-up party!
* LOTS of collectables and harvestables. One thing I really liked about World Adventures was that each world had collectables and harvestables that were specific to them and couldn't be found easily elsewhere. It gives you a reason to visit these places with different sims. So Shang Sim La (Egypt) had crocodiles, lapis lazuli, copper, and pomegranates. Champs Les Sims (France) had several new grapes for nectar making, snails, and I think it was amethyst. And Shang Sim La (China) had Koi fish, jade, and pomelos. I like how these unique collectables make a world feel fuller and more culturally specific. And I just really like collectables. XD I'd love more variety of flowers.
* I'm not too keen on the very large lots, they seem to be more demanding on my computer, and I just... prefer smaller lots! I'd be fine with one large lot in my town. Then I'd like a mix of middle-sized and smaller lots. I do really like the very small lots, and I tend to use the smallest lots for residential builds, and the middle-sized lots for community builds. The largest lots I prefer to have as parks or some kind of pre-built community lot, where it makes sense to have a large open area.
* Enough empty residential or blank lots. 'Starter' lots. I found that I had to evict some pre-mades from Windenberg to fit my own sims in, and I really hate to evict premades, or demolish nice buildings. :-(
* Each area within each world should have a different feel. They are doing this well with the current worlds! I like how in Willow Creek there is a slightly poorer almost industrial area, and richer areas, and a 'town' area. I like that in Newcrest there is a 'posh' end and at the other end it feels like it's closer to an older part of the city. In Oasis Springs there is the poorer dusty area, then a step-up to the greener 1950's style area. Then there are the rich houses on the other side. I like how each world has an overall theme, but then this breaks down into sub-theme that still feel like they are part of the larger world. They are doing this very well.
My main problem is that I run out of room for what I want to do. I don't mean space in general, but room within the sub-areas I mentioned above. There are some areas I haven't really touched yet and other areas which I have stuffed full already! An example of each would be the 1950's style family home area I mentioned above (which I've only just started to use) and the top end of Newcrest which I've jam-packed with mixed purpose lots already. What I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED them desperately to do is make it easier to run these multi purpose lots. To add a way to rent out rooms, or to add apartments. To be able to run a retail business from home. To be able to rent spaces on community lots, so I can have several business owners on one lot, or be able to rent an apartment above a shop. At the moment I'm having to jump through hoops to try and achieve this. I don't mind jam-packing stuff into the available lots in an area, but I need more tools to do it. I like the feeling of having a lot of space for richer sims, and having the poorer sims crushed in close together because it feels realistic.
Another feature I'd like to make me happier with the way worlds in TS4 work is to be able to own multiple lots, and to be able to own a variety of lots. I guess I'm asking for a real estate feature here. I'd like to be able to own a second home at vacation destinations, for example. Maybe a rich sim might have a holiday home at Granite Falls. Or they might like an apartment in Newcrest for the business week, but go home to their family in Willow Creek at the weekend. Features like this would allow me to make more use out of the available spaces, and use them in the way I want to.
But I don't think I'll ever love them. I hate fake backdrops, I hate when I can't edit anything.
T4 will never be the kind of game for me (given up on the idea theyll ever give us and edit world tool for TS4)
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I do think having an Australian inspired town would be cool though.