I personally think that's a good solution, one that I've suggested a few times, although I would disagree with it being simple, at least in terms of actually making it something we can do in the game. Since they'd have to make sure only Sims of the enabled Life Stages are in those worlds, without the Elder Life Stage, Sims would not be able to die, without the Child or Baby Life Stage, Sims would give birth to Teenagers, without the Young Adult and Adult Life Stages, Teenagers would become Elders. As much as this ability sounds nice, it takes off even more realism and has allot of flaws that can make things go wrong. I'd like the option but it may do more harm than good. Besides, as many simmers have pointed out, there are several ways for you to age up your Sims if you don't like them being in their current Life Stage - you can use cheats, Birthday cakes and sometimes just click on them to age them up.
Live your life to the fullest, don't wait for a miracle to happen, be the miracle to make things happen.
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.
I haven’t seen the game code, and it surely doesn’t look like I’ll just write, but I just want to show an idea.
Let’s imagine the code for ageing up looks like this pseudo-code:
ageUp(Sim s){
if (s.age == "child"){
ageUpToTeen(s);
}
// the same for other life stages
}
But, with toggles it could look like this:
ageUp(Sim s){
if (s.age == "child"){
if (teen.isEnabled){
ageUpToTeen(s);
}
else if (YA.isEnabled){
ageUpToYA(s);
}
// the same for adult and elder, if both disabled then the sim stays as a child
}
//the same for other life stages
}
So it would be doable, but it’d make the code more complex and it’d obviously involve some work to change it, independently of whether it is for life stages or something else, but I think in some cases it’d be worth the effort (yes, I’m thinking of culling ).
Toddlers were actually more independent with the Sims 3 store toddler items. Why I wouldn't be surprised if a toddler walker was sold in a DLC product. There is more than one way to fund a toddler update. I could totally see @SimGuruGraham make a Tiny Tykes Stuff pack with some cool inspiration for the Sims Freeplay items.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Toddlers were actually more independent with the Sims 3 store toddler items. Why I wouldn't be surprised if a toddler walker was sold in a DLC product. There is more than one way to fund a toddler update. I could totally see @SimGuruGraham make a Tiny Tykes Stuff pack with some cool inspiration for the Sims Freeplay items.
If they do add Toddlers, I think it would be nice to add a Stuff Pack mostly exclusively for them, if not to make the fans happy and add on to Toddlers, then to at least see how many people are willing to buy a Stuff Pack primarily for the Life Stage?
Live your life to the fullest, don't wait for a miracle to happen, be the miracle to make things happen.
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.
If they do add Toddlers, I think it would be nice to add a Stuff Pack mostly exclusively for them, if not to make the fans happy and add on to Toddlers, then to at least see how many people are willing to buy a Stuff Pack primarily for the Life Stage?
Yeah that's a good idea. I think SimGuruGraham could make a great SP just for them especially if he helped make one just for the children which I'm still really happy about. It would be cool to see one for teens too.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
I'm selling a pack about vampires. Great I'm getting it said one hundred people.
Ten others I want the coffee mug but hate vampires.
Producer, but the pack is about vampires, and all the myths and animations. The mug is not the EP.
But I want the mug said ten people. Take out the vampires so I can buy the mug.
Producer: But we spent all this time on vampires, and turning vampires, and how to kill and cure vampires. And we have some wonderful animations and stories for you to tell about the life of a vampire. 99.999999 is about vampires.
Ten people: I don't care take them out, give me the mug.
But I coffee mugs !
(and have a RL collection so huge - for hot & iced drinks - my family thinks I'm a bit nuts )
What I NOW do, is wait for a sale, then buy it for what I DO want it for, and ignore what I don't like.
For example, I HATE having aliens for 90 % of my save games, but I wanted the items it came with.
And, of course, I might comment on what I prefer, or don't like, but I WILL NEVER demand or make THREADS complaining.
(hate the clown in game, but plan on ignoring it)
I have noticed, there will always be bits & pieces we don't like, or want. SO I just try to make the most of what it DOES have.
(esp since I literally have over 300 videos games between consoles, handhelds, & PC versions, collected & played from the past 16 yrs.) And I don't put down others, for liking things I don't.
It doesn't make anyone more right, or wrong. It's just preferences, & games...
It's just like in TS3's Late Night. I absolutely hated the celebrity system. I didn't uninstall the pack...I played around the celebrities.
I kept my Sims away from the celebs so they wouldn't turn into one, too. Unless I wanted them to be a celeb. Same as in Superstar. I don't play the parts I'm not interested in. And in TS2 if I didn't want a vampire I didn't go hunting for the count.
There was an option added which allowed the player to opt out of the celebrity system - it was added after that expansion came out in a patch.
Literally what would be the problem in having a check box you can tick beside the Life Span thing to toggle on and off a life stage (same with life states)? I mean......there's seriously no cons to having that. o_o
Why is it even a debate on how it would be good or not? There's absolutely 0 cons to having that simple lil check box? (as far as I can see)
I don't get it either. I never have aging on in my game. How does that bother anyone else? Whether I ticked a box, put up a sign in the game, or deleted every supernatural I came across in order to not have them, what difference does it make to someone who loves them? It's so weird to see people arguing against options when that's what this series is all about, lol.
And from what has been said, toggles were introduced in TS3 so it's nothing new either, lol. Oh well.
Toggles introduced in Sims 3 were very necessary because supernaturals were a complete plague. They simply messed that up and that made the toggle a necessity. But a toggle for a life stage? Why toddlers then? Why just toddlers? If you can disable one life stage, you should also be able to disable others, right? So seven toggles then. And a toggle to disable the grim reaper for those who fear him. And a toggle to disable ghosts because not everyone appreciates them.
Skipping a life stage is so easy to do, why should the team waste time on that. Risking all kind of bugs and glitches surrounding it. Like the different lifetime settings that came with Generations - love those by the way - introduced a glitch where your whole town stops aging. Seriously, that glitch can be solved by uninstalling Generations, play a few days and install it again. Cheating is just as fast and simple as setting options and toggles so if you don't like a life stage: age the sim.
That's fine by me, lol. I would think a toggle for toddlers when include the other lifestates anyway. Personally, I'm more interested in toggles for supernaturals and other things, but hey. It could be fun living in a town full of teen townies, or a ghost-town literally of only ghosts, lol. I wish I could toggle the Grim Reaper on for myself, since without aging on, I've had no deaths so far (and go out of my way to make sure at least my played Sims never die).
My point wasn't whether or not it could be fun, my point is it would probably take a lot of time (that's in the part you didn't bold ) and it would probably come with glitches. I could imagine disabling a certain life state might be a lot easier than disabling a life stage, for reasons mentioned by @blueturtleotter (eta and later @Gruffman) . The toggle for life states by the way only means fairies and witches etc. won't appear automatically in my game. I can still play with witches and fairies myself though and put them in my world. And when they get kids, those kids will be fairies and witches, even when I don't play them.
I'm all for options too, but where would this end? If they added a toggle for toddlers, there will be the inevitable complaints from players who would ask why can't we have a toggle to remove elders? Babies? Teens? Young Adults?
If they decide to add cars and replace the instant teleport, should the people who complain that they don't want this feature in their game get a toggle for that? Should every new feature added to the game get a toggle?
How does Maxis decide what gets a toggle and what doesn't? Why should they favour one group of complainers over another?
The only solution would be to add toggles to everything. This would probably have an effect on the development of all content slowing it down. There would probably be trade offs meaning all the time they would have to spend adding toggles would result in them not having the time to implement x feature so that gets abandoned. Then there is the issue of testing. There would be so many unique toggle combinations, Maxis would struggle to test them all.
That is why I don't think we will ever get many toggles.
I don't think toddlers will come in a optional download, because as a life stage in a life simulator they are intrinsic to the game. I imagine the coding for them will have to be in everyone's game because of future content that will have features related to them.
They can’t make toggles for everything, so they’d have to decide on which features seem the most likely to be appreciated by some players and not really by others. If they decided to make toddlers possible to turn off, then other life stages should be adjustable too, because just one would be kind of odd. The TS3 choice for toggles was supernaturals and celebrities, and I think it was a right choice. For TS4 I’d choose supernaturals too (for now it’d be just aliens and ghosts), any kind of culling, generating relations, generating townies (I have a mod that stops the insane townie generation – the game just creates necessary NPCs) and receiving texts. Life stages not necessarily actually, because I don’t think there are many people who just hate a certain life stage, instead of being disappointed that it’s not fleshed out enough; for example some players don’t like teens, but not because the teen stage is a bad idea for the game, but because they’re basically the same as YAs.
Of course those example choices I listed wouldn’t suit literally every single player, but in my opinion the majority would be glad to have them possible to turn on/off.
Those toggles wouldn't have been necessary if they'd treated every supernatural the way they did the genies. Don't want them? You'll never see them. I can hardly believe there's one simmer out there - including the supernatural fans like me - who like the whole population turning into one. You want those supernaturals the be special, or rare. And when you don't (like me once when I needed a world filled with aliens) you can fill that world up with them yourself. That was fun to do even.
@Cinebar No, that's not what I'm saying. A lot of EP's have other things in them, and it's quite possible a person wants some aspect of the EP but not everything. A good example is GTW EP. I think most of us would agree that the core theme of that pack was active careers and retail game play. But aliens were a part of that EP as well. Someone could possibly want to play an active career but not deal with aliens. So the people that didn't want aliens, shouldn't buy the pack? That doesn't make sense. Just like turning alien abductions down because people some didn't want them didn't make sense. They gave us options to turn on/turn off life states before in TS3. IMHO, this option should have been provided when the GTW EP came out. For those that like aliens & bought the EP for the alien game play, seriously got duped as the game was changed after release.
My point was that there should be strategies/solutions that support various play styles.
I don't know why people would want vampires turned off either this time around. This is what we'd probably get. They could be as inane as the Sims in the game get.
[img]
I wouldn’t want them turned off, because I like any kind of supernaturals, especially hybrids, but I can get that some people don’t like tham and want a certain pack just for stuff or a particular feature. Yes, they could just not get that pack if there is something in it that really annoys them, or decide to put up with it, but toggles would be a good solution for that in my opinion – those who like vampires would enjoy having them in the game, and those who don’t would enjoy stuff without being annoyed by vampires. In some cases it is possible to please everyone, so when it is it should be done. I can’t really imagine someone creating a thread “I want those toggles to be removed, they really bug me” when an EP with them appears. I don’t think many people complain about having choice.
If it would come with glitches? I can see thectopics popping up.
"Hi, I've got all life stages enabled, I double checked, but still there's a kid jumping out of the bassinet when they grow up. I really want toddlers but my game keeps skipping the life stage even though I want it!"
That would be a similar complaint as "I've got aging on but my sims don't age" and that one exists. The reason I can live with that one, is that the ability to set the length of individual life stages is only possible in Options. The life stage 'problem' (a problem that never existed untill EA decided to get rid of a life stage) however is easily fixable in other ways (cheats & pies).
@JoAnne65
Of course bugs and glitches would be reported and complained about, that always happens and should happen, but I doubt that someone would complain about the idea of the checkboxes itself and wanted it to remove.
As for supernaturals in the town, I agree than filling the world with our sims is fun (and also I really like editing pre-mades to a significant extent so they become my sims, it let me connect to the town easily), but I enjoy seeing the amount of supernaturals slowly and gradually increasing as the time in the game passes, without me triggering that.
@Voeille The point is - my point anyway - is it worth it The risk of glitches and bugs, just to enable people to do something they already can do. Skip life stages. If they can do it flawless sure, why not. But unfortunately things like this do often come with glitches, especially when they're introduced to the game later. Though the disabling of the supernaturals is flawless as far as I know I must add. I doubt though that disabling a life state is comparable to disabling a life stage. The latter is much more complex I could imagine. Because disabling life states is purely a 'spawning' matter, not part of a process. Because like I said when two witches in a game with witches disabled get a kid, it will be a witch. (fortunately by the way)
ETA: I'd like to take the mermaids for an example. Those you can't disable, because they turn themselves into mermaids. I think it was @Jessa_Dakkar who witnessed that once? I hated it, all those awful townies turning up with coloured legs and tails. Till I installed Mastercontroller that enables me to 'demermaid' sims in a real easy way. Now I'm fine with it. I compare me demermaiding sims with MC with aging sims manually.
@JoAnne65
If it turned out to be really glitchy then it’d be more annoying than useful, especially given than I don’t think many people would want to disable life stages. However, for some other features it surely would be a nice addition, mostly when it seems that the split between people who like something and don’t can be estimated as roughly equal, or for some other reason. I’ll mention culling again – most people don’t seem to like it and find it quite annoying; apparently it was designed for performance purposes, so a checkbox for that would be a nice solution I think – sims and their relations are important for most players, and if they care about them more than longer loading screens, they should be able to turn it off, and if they decide they want it back – turn it on. Yes, that can be solved by mods, but why not have a convenient checkbox. If a modder can do something, surely EA can do it too.
As for life stages specifically, I personally don’t see the purpose of skipping them, but I agree with what you said – I’m all for a checkbox if it’s done fine. Incidentally, it’s quite interesting that before the whole toddler issue no-one would want life stages disabled, at least I haven’t seen posts like that before about older games.
@JoAnne65
If it turned out to be really glitchy then it’d be more annoying than useful, especially given than I don’t think many people would want to disable life stages. However, for some other features it surely would be a nice addition, mostly when it seems that the split between people who like something and don’t can be estimated as roughly equal, or for some other reason. I’ll mention culling again – most people don’t seem to like it and find it quite annoying; apparently it was designed for performance purposes, so a checkbox for that would be a nice solution I think – sims and their relations are important for most players, and if they care about them more than longer loading screens, they should be able to turn it off, and if they decide they want it back – turn it on. Yes, that can be solved by mods, but why not have a convenient checkbox. If a modder can do something, surely EA can do it too.
As for life stages specifically, I personally don’t see the purpose of skipping them, but I agree with what you said – I’m all for a checkbox if it’s done fine. Incidentally, it’s quite interesting that before the whole toddler issue no-one would want life stages disabled, at least I haven’t seen posts like that before about older games.
That's something I've come to realize more and more now that I've started using mods myself. Shouldn't each gaming company have a development team (the creative ones, the ones with dreams and ideas who only see possibilities) and a 'modding' team (the practicle ones who focus on making those dreams and ideas workable and smooth). It seems to me that latter team does exist, they're just not being paid by EA.
@Voeille The point is - my point anyway - is it worth it The risk of glitches and bugs, just to enable people to do something they already can do. Skip life stages. If they can do it flawless sure, why not. But unfortunately things like this do often come with glitches, especially when they're introduced to the game later. Though the disabling of the supernaturals is flawless as far as I know I must add. I doubt though that disabling a life state is comparable to disabling a life stage. The latter is much more complex I could imagine. Because disabling life states is purely a 'spawning' matter, not part of a process. Because like I said when two witches in a game with witches disabled get a kid, it will be a witch. (fortunately by the way)
ETA: I'd like to take the mermaids for an example. Those you can't disable, because they turn themselves into mermaids. I think it was @Jessa_Dakkar who witnessed that once? I hated it, all those awful townies turning up with coloured legs and tails. Till I installed Mastercontroller that enables me to 'demermaid' sims in a real easy way. Now I'm fine with it. I compare me demermaiding sims with MC with aging sims manually.
I know you still play TS3 so just an FYI. Using the cheat to unlock outfits you can take mermaid Sims into CAS and remove the leg scales. They're like stockings and are under....it's been a while, I think.....accessories. No more funny colored legs.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
I don't care at all for toddlers but to add a toggle for them seems needlessly complicated, because its so easy to age them up. If it's possible for that to be added without adding bugs to the game, why not incorporate it for people who want it?
I don't want any supernaturals in my games (except aliens, maybe) so I'd appreciate a toggle for them. When I bought NL for TS2 I did it for the bands, the city etc NOT for vampires, and I avoided them as much as possible. But if I could get no interaction with them at all with a toggle, I would be pleased. If not, then I'll just have to make do and try to avoid them.
Toggles aren't necessary for anyone. But they're nice additions.
However I can see people wanting toggles for almost anything once they start adding them in the game, which would complicate it more. Toggles for life stages and special life stages seems the most practical.
The Sims has currently lost its identity. Bring it back for TS5
I don't know about anyone else but random Zombies was really annoying in Sims 3. I hated them and they'd destroy my garden. Also it made my game not very kid friendly for me to let my younger siblings play. Having the option to turn off certain lifeforms would be really nice.
I don't know about anyone else but random Zombies was really annoying in Sims 3. I hated them and they'd destroy my garden. Also it made my game not very kid friendly for me to let my younger siblings play. Having the option to turn off certain lifeforms would be really nice.
One easy solution is to set your lunar cycle so that you don't have a full moon. No full moon, no zombies.
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
I don't care at all for toddlers but to add a toggle for them seems needlessly complicated, because its so easy to age them up. If it's possible for that to be added without adding bugs to the game, why not incorporate it for people who want it?
I don't want any supernaturals in my games (except aliens, maybe) so I'd appreciate a toggle for them. When I bought NL for TS2 I did it for the bands, the city etc NOT for vampires, and I avoided them as much as possible. But if I could get no interaction with them at all with a toggle, I would be pleased. If not, then I'll just have to make do and try to avoid them.
Toggles aren't necessary for anyone. But they're nice additions.
However I can see people wanting toggles for almost anything once they start adding them in the game, which would complicate it more. Toggles for life stages and special life stages seems the most practical.
But here's the problem with toggles. What If I don't want something in the EP besides the vampires or werewolves? Say I want a toggle that stops any new interactions added in an EP. One good example was in Apartment Life. TS2 Sims never had to 'greet' anybody before that EP.
I wanted apartments that's true, but I hated the 'greet' before you speak new feature. And it ruined OFB, you had to 'greet' a Sim before you could make a sale. Shake hands and all that. They did have a mod to remove that off the OFB lots will built and I was greatful.
But I didn't demand Maxis take all their time away from creating something else for a toggle to turn off the greet feature which became more annoying than any other feature ever added to any game. Because no longer could you send your Sims anywhere without half the townie population interrupting your Sim every few minutes to 'greet' them. Behind the bar trying to earn a few bucks, interrupted. In the hot tub trying to build a social relationship with somebody, interrupted, get out and greet a townie. Etc. ETc.
It's just not life stages, and life states that annoy people it's almost anything and Maxis doesn't have time to create every toggle people want. That is why we use mods to stop something instead of making Maxis jump hoops. ETA: And for a few years, I played TS2 without the EP installed. I didn't demand I be catered to, when others loved the new greet feature. I can't imagine how they could but I was looking for a mod to stop it completely.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I don't know about anyone else but random Zombies was really annoying in Sims 3. I hated them and they'd destroy my garden. Also it made my game not very kid friendly for me to let my younger siblings play. Having the option to turn off certain lifeforms would be really nice.
I have a mod to stop them from eating plants and I usually torture them if they come on my sims's property. Those zombies were very tame so how was it not kid-friendly enough? I actually wanted them to attack other sims and eat their brains not scare them. I think all occult sims were too tame and could've did a lot more damage if they wanted them to. (Luckily I found mods to help with that)
Thats what i mentioned in my last paragraph. It may not end there. But i can see life states/creatures affecting gameplay the most rather than an interaction, which i why i said those two would be the most practical.
The Sims has currently lost its identity. Bring it back for TS5
Thats what i mentioned in my last paragraph. It may not end there. But i can see life states/creatures affecting gameplay the most rather than an interaction, which i why i said those two would be the most practical.
The interactions in AL wasn't just one Sim interrupting your Sim but in TS2 there are as many townies on a lot as your computer can take. Sometimes 20 or more. Especially, downtown which is coded to allow more than in the mainhood community lots. So, a person could be interrupted by 20 or more townies every few seconds. That is exactly how it worked. So, I see someone who wants an EP that says "Toddlers" on it and or "Supernatural' on it not being sensible. That is exactly what it's going to have so who would spend money knowing they hate those things but then demand a turn off button when it plainly said on the carton Toddlers or Supernatural.
No, you take it to the community and somebody makes you mod. You don't buy something knowing the name on the box is the very thing you hate. That is totally illogical to say the very least.
ETA: It's like buying sour cream and chives potato chips. You know what it is, then you get mad because it is sour cream and chives.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I don't know about anyone else but random Zombies was really annoying in Sims 3. I hated them and they'd destroy my garden. Also it made my game not very kid friendly for me to let my younger siblings play. Having the option to turn off certain lifeforms would be really nice.
I have a mod to stop them from eating plants and I usually torture them if they come on my sims's property. Those zombies were very tame so how was it not kid-friendly enough? I actually wanted them to attack other sims and eat their brains not scare them. I think all occult sims were too tame and could've did a lot more damage if they wanted them to. (Luckily I found mods to help with that)
I feel the same way....the supernaturals were far too tame. I can only imagine what kind of life states this la la land, happy, happy version of the Sims could produce. Grinning, selfie taking vamps? Werewolves that scratch at the door to be let in? Hot looking witches that post on Siwitter (Sim/twitter) for potions?
"People really love to explore 'failure states. In fact, the failure states are really much more interesting than the success states." ~ Will Wright
I don't know about anyone else but random Zombies was really annoying in Sims 3. I hated them and they'd destroy my garden. Also it made my game not very kid friendly for me to let my younger siblings play. Having the option to turn off certain lifeforms would be really nice.
I have a mod to stop them from eating plants and I usually torture them if they come on my sims's property. Those zombies were very tame so how was it not kid-friendly enough? I actually wanted them to attack other sims and eat their brains not scare them. I think all occult sims were too tame and could've did a lot more damage if they wanted them to. (Luckily I found mods to help with that)
I feel the same way....the supernaturals were far too tame. I can only imagine what kind of life states this la la land, happy, happy version of the Sims could produce. Grinning, selfie taking vamps? Werewolves that scratch at the door to be let in? Hot looking witches that post on Siwitter (Sim/twitter) for potions?
I can see all of that happening too and it's kind of sad. It would be even worse if they pretend they're part of the occult and run around harassing sims like the ones in bear costumes do. I think they could do a lot more with supernatural sims but they hold back too much and are trying to reach a younger audience like the preteens but I'm sure most of them have played rated M games before. It seems like rated T shouldn't be that strict on certain things since nobody said the attacks had to be gory and showing sims getting ripped apart.
Comments
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.
Let’s imagine the code for ageing up looks like this pseudo-code:
ageUp(Sim s){ if (s.age == "child"){ ageUpToTeen(s); } // the same for other life stages }But, with toggles it could look like this:
ageUp(Sim s){ if (s.age == "child"){ if (teen.isEnabled){ ageUpToTeen(s); } else if (YA.isEnabled){ ageUpToYA(s); } // the same for adult and elder, if both disabled then the sim stays as a child } //the same for other life stages }So it would be doable, but it’d make the code more complex and it’d obviously involve some work to change it, independently of whether it is for life stages or something else, but I think in some cases it’d be worth the effort (yes, I’m thinking of culling
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If they do add Toddlers, I think it would be nice to add a Stuff Pack mostly exclusively for them, if not to make the fans happy and add on to Toddlers, then to at least see how many people are willing to buy a Stuff Pack primarily for the Life Stage?
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.
There was an option added which allowed the player to opt out of the celebrity system - it was added after that expansion came out in a patch.
My point was that there should be strategies/solutions that support various play styles.
"Hi, I've got all life stages enabled, I double checked, but still there's a kid jumping out of the bassinet when they grow up. I really want toddlers but my game keeps skipping the life stage even though I want it!"
That would be a similar complaint as "I've got aging on but my sims don't age" and that one exists. The reason I can live with that one, is that the ability to set the length of individual life stages is only possible in Options. The life stage 'problem' (a problem that never existed untill EA decided to get rid of a life stage) however is easily fixable in other ways (cheats & pies).
Of course bugs and glitches would be reported and complained about, that always happens and should happen, but I doubt that someone would complain about the idea of the checkboxes itself and wanted it to remove.
As for supernaturals in the town, I agree than filling the world with our sims is fun (and also I really like editing pre-mades to a significant extent so they become my sims, it let me connect to the town easily), but I enjoy seeing the amount of supernaturals slowly and gradually increasing as the time in the game passes, without me triggering that.
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ETA: I'd like to take the mermaids for an example. Those you can't disable, because they turn themselves into mermaids. I think it was @Jessa_Dakkar who witnessed that once? I hated it, all those awful townies turning up with coloured legs and tails. Till I installed Mastercontroller that enables me to 'demermaid' sims in a real easy way. Now I'm fine with it. I compare me demermaiding sims with MC with aging sims manually.
If it turned out to be really glitchy then it’d be more annoying than useful, especially given than I don’t think many people would want to disable life stages. However, for some other features it surely would be a nice addition, mostly when it seems that the split between people who like something and don’t can be estimated as roughly equal, or for some other reason. I’ll mention culling again – most people don’t seem to like it and find it quite annoying; apparently it was designed for performance purposes, so a checkbox for that would be a nice solution I think – sims and their relations are important for most players, and if they care about them more than longer loading screens, they should be able to turn it off, and if they decide they want it back – turn it on. Yes, that can be solved by mods, but why not have a convenient checkbox. If a modder can do something, surely EA can do it too.
As for life stages specifically, I personally don’t see the purpose of skipping them, but I agree with what you said – I’m all for a checkbox if it’s done fine. Incidentally, it’s quite interesting that before the whole toddler issue no-one would want life stages disabled, at least I haven’t seen posts like that before about older games.
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I know you still play TS3 so just an FYI. Using the cheat to unlock outfits you can take mermaid Sims into CAS and remove the leg scales. They're like stockings and are under....it's been a while, I think.....accessories. No more funny colored legs.
I don't want any supernaturals in my games (except aliens, maybe) so I'd appreciate a toggle for them. When I bought NL for TS2 I did it for the bands, the city etc NOT for vampires, and I avoided them as much as possible. But if I could get no interaction with them at all with a toggle, I would be pleased. If not, then I'll just have to make do and try to avoid them.
Toggles aren't necessary for anyone. But they're nice additions.
However I can see people wanting toggles for almost anything once they start adding them in the game, which would complicate it more. Toggles for life stages and special life stages seems the most practical.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
One easy solution is to set your lunar cycle so that you don't have a full moon. No full moon, no zombies.
But here's the problem with toggles. What If I don't want something in the EP besides the vampires or werewolves? Say I want a toggle that stops any new interactions added in an EP. One good example was in Apartment Life. TS2 Sims never had to 'greet' anybody before that EP.
I wanted apartments that's true, but I hated the 'greet' before you speak new feature. And it ruined OFB, you had to 'greet' a Sim before you could make a sale. Shake hands and all that. They did have a mod to remove that off the OFB lots will built and I was greatful.
But I didn't demand Maxis take all their time away from creating something else for a toggle to turn off the greet feature which became more annoying than any other feature ever added to any game. Because no longer could you send your Sims anywhere without half the townie population interrupting your Sim every few minutes to 'greet' them. Behind the bar trying to earn a few bucks, interrupted. In the hot tub trying to build a social relationship with somebody, interrupted, get out and greet a townie. Etc. ETc.
It's just not life stages, and life states that annoy people it's almost anything and Maxis doesn't have time to create every toggle people want. That is why we use mods to stop something instead of making Maxis jump hoops. ETA: And for a few years, I played TS2 without the EP installed. I didn't demand I be catered to, when others loved the new greet feature. I can't imagine how they could but I was looking for a mod to stop it completely.
I have a mod to stop them from eating plants and I usually torture them if they come on my sims's property. Those zombies were very tame so how was it not kid-friendly enough? I actually wanted them to attack other sims and eat their brains not scare them. I think all occult sims were too tame and could've did a lot more damage if they wanted them to. (Luckily I found mods to help with that)
Thats what i mentioned in my last paragraph. It may not end there. But i can see life states/creatures affecting gameplay the most rather than an interaction, which i why i said those two would be the most practical.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
The interactions in AL wasn't just one Sim interrupting your Sim but in TS2 there are as many townies on a lot as your computer can take. Sometimes 20 or more. Especially, downtown which is coded to allow more than in the mainhood community lots. So, a person could be interrupted by 20 or more townies every few seconds. That is exactly how it worked. So, I see someone who wants an EP that says "Toddlers" on it and or "Supernatural' on it not being sensible. That is exactly what it's going to have so who would spend money knowing they hate those things but then demand a turn off button when it plainly said on the carton Toddlers or Supernatural.
No, you take it to the community and somebody makes you mod. You don't buy something knowing the name on the box is the very thing you hate. That is totally illogical to say the very least.
ETA: It's like buying sour cream and chives potato chips. You know what it is, then you get mad because it is sour cream and chives.
I feel the same way....the supernaturals were far too tame. I can only imagine what kind of life states this la la land, happy, happy version of the Sims could produce. Grinning, selfie taking vamps? Werewolves that scratch at the door to be let in? Hot looking witches that post on Siwitter (Sim/twitter) for potions?
I can see all of that happening too and it's kind of sad. It would be even worse if they pretend they're part of the occult and run around harassing sims like the ones in bear costumes do. I think they could do a lot more with supernatural sims but they hold back too much and are trying to reach a younger audience like the preteens but I'm sure most of them have played rated M games before. It seems like rated T shouldn't be that strict on certain things since nobody said the attacks had to be gory and showing sims getting ripped apart.