I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
Multi-use lots aren't possible. Each venue has a set list of required objects that are pretty much the only objects Sims will autonomously use. So adding spa objects to a gym will not result in the lot being both a gym and a spa, it will still be a gym and Sims will ignore pretty much everything besides the gym stuff that they are drawn to by default. The only exception to that is the instructor yoga mat which does automatically spawn its own NPC.
Some things allow you to hire an NPC but you have to pay for that. Lots don't work like in the past, they have it set up so Sims will autonomously use certain stuff and completely ignore other stuff on the same lot if it doesn't have a role scripted to it.
The bolded part isn't the case.
I have a gym and I added spa items to it. The sauna, massage tables, yoga mats. Sims used all the equipment and sims spawned for the items along with the trainer. I think this particular set up is an exception because the EA spa has gym items in it and sims use that. So, it seems like they can be used in conjunction.
I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
@Cynna I didn't say it was a multi-purpose lot, lol, I said I built a multi-purpose building. I go into build mode and switch out the lot designation depending on what I want to do. As far as ALL the floors being well populated- they are not because when I switch out the lot designation I remove the doors from the stairwell to the floors not in use. This is a MUST for when running it as a restaurant as people will sit scattered all over the four floors of the building and outside on the cafe patio ordering food and slowing down the service. I also use a mod to increase the number of sims on a lot which means, by and large, my lots are all always well populated. It's not a perfect system and I've ridiculed it in the past with a satirical build but it works okay. For example if I want to go to the Cafe/Bookstore then I switch it to a cafe upon teleporting to the lot. It takes a bit for the employees to swap out which is a nuisance and an immersion breaker. Honestly most of the time I have it set as a Restaurant- all the restaurant staff arrive and the bartenders will arrive as well to operate the bar (I only have the one bar on the lot, in between the restaurant floor and the roof top Karaoke lounge so it does triple duty) in a restaurant, effectively opening the nightclub at the same time, along with, to a very limited sense, the Karaoke lounge. I've seen a sim use it autonomously while the restaurant was functioning but only once I think- of course I haven't been there much as I mostly eat in the plazas since there is no loading screen to eat there. I like the building I built because it simulates an urban feel by having numerous services in a single vertical design but it's far from ideal. It's just what I had to turn to in order to better use the city as I wanted to within the limitation of the game engine design.
San Myshuno is not perfect but it's no where near as bad as many of the people (some of whom haven't even purchased the EP) on this forum paint it to be. I firmly believe there is no way with current processing power available for the home market to simulate a thirty square mile/ eight million person Manhattan in this game but the fx tricks and background do a fairly good job with what they have to work with. There ARE problems with this EP and I talk about them elsewhere but the overall feel of the city is not one of them.
IMO if you really look at the city you'll see it's history mapped out in the four districts with the Spice Market being a distant past of the early part of last century- The Arts Quarter being the more recent past of the second half of the last century- The Fashion District being current times and Uptown being the future. It's clever and it's well thought out showing the player how it developed and grew. You can see all the parts of the city from each other giving a true cohesiveness to the design suggesting all these neighborhoods are in fact part of the same place, the same city- that's completely missing from the other worlds, there's nothing to suggest where exactly one part of Oasis starts and another ends and only a vague idea of what part developed first and what followed later. San Myshuno is not like that- it's well thought out.
I think a lot of people have a lot of complaints with this game- some of it well deserved- but there comes a point where one has to admit that the bar is so high with some players that there is no way it's going to be met. The bar of a sprawling thirty, twenty or even ten square mile city with a population in the millions being simulated in a way that you can set out walking around it and get lost is one of those bars. San Myshuno is the best attempt at an urban environment to date in the Sims series.
As much as I love and expected Metropolis / City Living, I gotta agree with that. I enjoy the Spice Market neighborhood because it actually feels comfy and "lived", you can walk around there and do some stuff, but the rest of the districts feel really limited for a CITY, not to mention the lack of Sims. I swear I think I've seen more Sims walk around Windenburg around the Partihaus lot than any of the City Living districts.
I do love this game but I don't know if their idea for every Expansion Pack has had a "Meh, there you go" feeling. I know all of the Gurus are doing an amazing job and they feel really enthusiastic about the game when they do livestreams, but the content really lacks something when you compare it to The Sims 2 and 3.
I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
Multi-use lots aren't possible. Each venue has a set list of required objects that are pretty much the only objects Sims will autonomously use. So adding spa objects to a gym will not result in the lot being both a gym and a spa, it will still be a gym and Sims will ignore pretty much everything besides the gym stuff that they are drawn to by default. The only exception to that is the instructor yoga mat which does automatically spawn its own NPC.
Some things allow you to hire an NPC but you have to pay for that. Lots don't work like in the past, they have it set up so Sims will autonomously use certain stuff and completely ignore other stuff on the same lot if it doesn't have a role scripted to it.
The bolded part isn't the case.
I have a gym and I added spa items to it. The sauna, massage tables, yoga mats. Sims used all the equipment and sims spawned for the items along with the trainer. I think this particular set up is an exception because the EA spa has gym items in it and sims use that. So, it seems like they can be used in conjunction.
I've done the same in a gym with the yoga instructor mat- the instructor showed up and held classes in the gym. I had a bar in the gym as well BUT you had to pay the hundred dollar fee to activate a bartender for it. There may be a mod for this- there's one to take away the fee for using the new food booths.
As much as I love and expected Metropolis / City Living, I gotta agree with that. I enjoy the Spice Market neighborhood because it actually feels comfy and "lived", you can walk around there and do some stuff, but the rest of the districts feel really limited for a CITY, not to mention the lack of Sims. I swear I think I've seen more Sims walk around Windenburg around the Partihaus lot than any of the City Living districts.
I do love this game but I don't know if their idea for every Expansion Pack has had a "Meh, there you go" feeling. I know all of the Gurus are doing an amazing job and they feel really enthusiastic about the game when they do livestreams, but the content really lacks something when you compare it to The Sims 2 and 3.
Yer i forgot to mention it seems to lack sims i think they need to add a option to allow people with mid to high end pc's to have more sims on lots
Maybe in future they can make new worlds and make another city world thats laid out differently and has more lots in its section or something
I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
Multi-use lots aren't possible. Each venue has a set list of required objects that are pretty much the only objects Sims will autonomously use. So adding spa objects to a gym will not result in the lot being both a gym and a spa, it will still be a gym and Sims will ignore pretty much everything besides the gym stuff that they are drawn to by default. The only exception to that is the instructor yoga mat which does automatically spawn its own NPC.
Some things allow you to hire an NPC but you have to pay for that. Lots don't work like in the past, they have it set up so Sims will autonomously use certain stuff and completely ignore other stuff on the same lot if it doesn't have a role scripted to it.
The bolded part isn't the case.
I have a gym and I added spa items to it. The sauna, massage tables, yoga mats. Sims used all the equipment and sims spawned for the items along with the trainer. I think this particular set up is an exception because the EA spa has gym items in it and sims use that. So, it seems like they can be used in conjunction.
I've done the same in a gym with the yoga instructor mat- the instructor showed up and held classes in the gym. I had a bar in the gym as well BUT you had to pay the hundred dollar fee to activate a bartender for it. There may be a mod for this- there's one to take away the fee for using the new food booths.
Did you use the specific yoga instructor mat? I'm asking because I've downloaded several spas in the gallery that don't have the correct mat and the instructor wont show up until I've edited the yoga room big enough and placed the right mat.
To the topic, I really like the city. I didn't pay for it myself though, so of course it's possible that it somehow affects my expectations. I still think if you get it from sale it's very well worth the price.
@luimistelija Yes, I set the designation of the lot to spa during building long enough to place the instructor mat- IT HAS TO BE THE INSTRUCTOR MAT, LOL- Otherwise it won't work and that is only available to place when the lot is set as a "spa" but it doesn't disappear when the lot designation is changed. Which is what I did, changing it back to gym. And yes, the room needs to be big enough but I've used MOO (in fact, in the building in San Myshuno that I was talking about in this post) to place the mat in less space then it needs and it will work. I'm not sure exactly how small it can be though.
Personally I don't feel that the city is underwhelming. I think they did a great job with certain aspects: I like the central festival areas and these always seem busy to me; I like that I can step outside and into the bustling community without a loading screen; I like that there are lots of items I can use in these outside areas; I liked the themed zones.
However, I do agree that the areas could have been a bit larger, and that there could have been more attention paid outside of those central hubs of activity. I'd like to have been able to explore the larger area more. I'd also have liked a couple more lots in each area that I could have built more community lots on. But I'm happy with the amount of apartments.
I think that building a city is always going to be challenging for the dev team, and I think they did a generally good job here. The streets feel much busier than they did to me in Bridgeport, for example. I just wish the city was a bit BIGGER!
How is the EP underwhelming in what way? Granted I didn't pay full price for the EP I only paid 27 dollars for it I felt like it was the one EP that was worth 40 dollars.
It may not be underwhelming for you, but for others looking at what can done in this EP it may be. Many people are disappointed you can't build Apts from scratch and for me that is a restriction and the list can go on. While CL has some good aspects it has some bad as well.
Ok well I don't build and I don't like owning businesses so maybe because I don't build the apartments are fine how they are and because I don't own businesses that content like restaurants and retail are fine just being NPC runned.
I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
@Cynna I didn't say it was a multi-purpose lot, lol, I said I built a multi-purpose building. I go into build mode and switch out the lot designation depending on what I want to do. As far as ALL the floors being well populated- they are not because when I switch out the lot designation I remove the doors from the stairwell to the floors not in use. This is a MUST for when running it as a restaurant as people will sit scattered all over the four floors of the building and outside on the cafe patio ordering food and slowing down the service. I also use a mod to increase the number of sims on a lot which means, by and large, my lots are all always well populated. It's not a perfect system and I've ridiculed it in the past with a satirical build but it works okay. For example if I want to go to the Cafe/Bookstore then I switch it to a cafe upon teleporting to the lot. It takes a bit for the employees to swap out which is a nuisance and an immersion breaker. Honestly most of the time I have it set as a Restaurant- all the restaurant staff arrive and the bartenders will arrive as well to operate the bar (I only have the one bar on the lot, in between the restaurant floor and the roof top Karaoke lounge so it does triple duty) in a restaurant, effectively opening the nightclub at the same time, along with, to a very limited sense, the Karaoke lounge. I've seen a sim use it autonomously while the restaurant was functioning but only once I think- of course I haven't been there much as I mostly eat in the plazas since there is no loading screen to eat there. I like the building I built because it simulates an urban feel by having numerous services in a single vertical design but it's far from ideal. It's just what I had to turn to in order to better use the city as I wanted to within the limitation of the game engine design.
San Myshuno is not perfect but it's no where near as bad as many of the people (some of whom haven't even purchased the EP) on this forum paint it to be. I firmly believe there is no way with current processing power available for the home market to simulate a thirty square mile/ eight million person Manhattan in this game but the fx tricks and background do a fairly good job with what they have to work with. There ARE problems with this EP and I talk about them elsewhere but the overall feel of the city is not one of them.
IMO if you really look at the city you'll see it's history mapped out in the four districts with the Spice Market being a distant past of the early part of last century- The Arts Quarter being the more recent past of the second half of the last century- The Fashion District being current times and Uptown being the future. It's clever and it's well thought out showing the player how it developed and grew. You can see all the parts of the city from each other giving a true cohesiveness to the design suggesting all these neighborhoods are in fact part of the same place, the same city- that's completely missing from the other worlds, there's nothing to suggest where exactly one part of Oasis starts and another ends and only a vague idea of what part developed first and what followed later. San Myshuno is not like that- it's well thought out.
I think a lot of people have a lot of complaints with this game- some of it well deserved- but there comes a point where one has to admit that the bar is so high with some players that there is no way it's going to be met. The bar of a sprawling thirty, twenty or even ten square mile city with a population in the millions being simulated in a way that you can set out walking around it and get lost is one of those bars. San Myshuno is the best attempt at an urban environment to date in the Sims series.
I completely disagree. There were many player made urban worlds in both TS2 and TS3 which rival anything ever produced by Maxis. This is my opinion, but I think San Myshuno is the absolute worst attempt at a city. I cannot even fathom why anyone would think 4 lots in a city is acceptable.
I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
@Cynna I didn't say it was a multi-purpose lot, lol, I said I built a multi-purpose building. I go into build mode and switch out the lot designation depending on what I want to do. As far as ALL the floors being well populated- they are not because when I switch out the lot designation I remove the doors from the stairwell to the floors not in use. This is a MUST for when running it as a restaurant as people will sit scattered all over the four floors of the building and outside on the cafe patio ordering food and slowing down the service. I also use a mod to increase the number of sims on a lot which means, by and large, my lots are all always well populated. It's not a perfect system and I've ridiculed it in the past with a satirical build but it works okay. For example if I want to go to the Cafe/Bookstore then I switch it to a cafe upon teleporting to the lot. It takes a bit for the employees to swap out which is a nuisance and an immersion breaker. Honestly most of the time I have it set as a Restaurant- all the restaurant staff arrive and the bartenders will arrive as well to operate the bar (I only have the one bar on the lot, in between the restaurant floor and the roof top Karaoke lounge so it does triple duty) in a restaurant, effectively opening the nightclub at the same time, along with, to a very limited sense, the Karaoke lounge. I've seen a sim use it autonomously while the restaurant was functioning but only once I think- of course I haven't been there much as I mostly eat in the plazas since there is no loading screen to eat there. I like the building I built because it simulates an urban feel by having numerous services in a single vertical design but it's far from ideal. It's just what I had to turn to in order to better use the city as I wanted to within the limitation of the game engine design.
San Myshuno is not perfect but it's no where near as bad as many of the people (some of whom haven't even purchased the EP) on this forum paint it to be. I firmly believe there is no way with current processing power available for the home market to simulate a thirty square mile/ eight million person Manhattan in this game but the fx tricks and background do a fairly good job with what they have to work with. There ARE problems with this EP and I talk about them elsewhere but the overall feel of the city is not one of them.
IMO if you really look at the city you'll see it's history mapped out in the four districts with the Spice Market being a distant past of the early part of last century- The Arts Quarter being the more recent past of the second half of the last century- The Fashion District being current times and Uptown being the future. It's clever and it's well thought out showing the player how it developed and grew. You can see all the parts of the city from each other giving a true cohesiveness to the design suggesting all these neighborhoods are in fact part of the same place, the same city- that's completely missing from the other worlds, there's nothing to suggest where exactly one part of Oasis starts and another ends and only a vague idea of what part developed first and what followed later. San Myshuno is not like that- it's well thought out.
I think a lot of people have a lot of complaints with this game- some of it well deserved- but there comes a point where one has to admit that the bar is so high with some players that there is no way it's going to be met. The bar of a sprawling thirty, twenty or even ten square mile city with a population in the millions being simulated in a way that you can set out walking around it and get lost is one of those bars. San Myshuno is the best attempt at an urban environment to date in the Sims series.
I completely disagree. There were many player made urban worlds in both TS2 and TS3 which rival anything ever produced by Maxis. This is my opinion, but I think San Myshuno is the absolute worst attempt at a city. I cannot even fathom why anyone would think 4 lots in a city is acceptable.
I don't think four lots is acceptable, who would- there's 30 but I'm not just bean counting buildable area. I'm talking about the overall feel of the entire environment. Things like finding sims out and about at night or having a great view of the bridge from my apartment window or seeing loads of people visiting the festival or having random boxes of junk about or crazy looking people and so on. I'm talking about an urban feel and EVERYTHING it encompasses which is not too say the EA/Maxis have perfected that with this pack just that it is the best attempt so far for an urban feel in it's entirety and it's not bad.
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. For the purposes of my post I was using the words lot/building interchangeably. I realize that you built a multi-purpose building. That's why I inquired what lot designation you used.
While your solution to the space problem was very creative, it's honestly just too much of a hassle for me. Each time that I had to modify the lot before use, I think that I would become more resentful that there weren't enough available lots in the first place. Or, that lots were not made mult-functional. This is the only game in the series where I felt such unnecessary limitations on space and function.
As for the city itself, my best praise goes to the visuals of San Myshuno. You mention the progression of the neighborhoods, time-wise? That is all well and good. But from a gameplay perspective, that adds absolutely nothing to my experience. People walking around, talking, and eating does not make a city. Cities are full of other activities and, for me, that is where San Myshuno falls down.
Where's the hopscotch and the double-dutch on the streets? Tag? Kick the Can? Ding, dong, ditch? That's just stuff that I could think of for the kids. There's a lot more that adults could get up to in their free time.
In the Spice Market, for example, there's one set of monkey bars and one hoop for b-ball. The kids in my game don't even look at the monkey bars, all they do is eat. That's all that anyone does.
There are no corner bodegas and no lots for all the little shops that I would have expected to see in a neighborhood such as that one. Where is the beauty salon? The daycare? The local medical clinic/pharmacy? Why can't Sims also sit out on the stoops and greet their neighbors? Why are the buildings merely facades that can't be interacted with for any other reason than to teleport? A neighborhood like that should have been like one big, extended family. Instead, player created Sims get turned into tourists with no cameras and everyone else is still eating.
Since the neighborhoods are so tiny, use the remaining processing power to simulate LIFE!
My next point: no one is expecting the devs to simulate millions of people or square miles of populated housing. However, I did expect that a world, representative of a city, would have a greater number of usable lots for community activity than the other worlds that came before. In San Myshuno, there are places that Sims can walk. Yet, why bother? There's absolutely nothing of interest there. Once in a while, a Sim might discover a box. That's it. A box. Oh, wait. There are also posters which, like boxes, are always in the same exact place anyway. Why weren't the building facades in those areas given over for lots that players could use?
IMO, the closest approximation to a city that this series ever had was Bridgeport. That world was surpassed by cities that were created by other gamers. Los Aniegos, Beach City, Legacy Island, and St. Claire are flippin' incredible. They all provide distinctly different neighbors that one can travel to by bike, car, subway, or good, old-fashioned walking. In the case of a city like St. Claire, each and every building that one could see was functional as either a residence or a community lot. There may not have been much activity on the streets, but in my game, there was plenty to do on the actual lots. From the taller buildings, one could view actual bridges that could be crossed and bodies of water that could be used for fishing or swimming -- at any point, not just where you found a little sign.
San Myshuno is a basically a Trompe-l'oiel. It's a gorgeously fantastic one, but an artistic illusion nevertheless. I prefer more parts of my game be fact than fiction. That's just my personal opinion. That constant sleight of hand and tricks of the eye get tired very quickly. That is my major issue with the game. The second issue is the inability to correct it by creating my own or by downloading something that is better. That outlet was removed from the series entirely. In the case of San Myshuno, all we're left with are two chances per neighborhood to leave our personal imprint on the face of the city. That's far too few.
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. For the purposes of my post I was using the words lot/building interchangeably. I realize that you built a multi-purpose building. That's why I inquired what lot designation you used.
While your solution to the space problem was very creative, it's honestly just too much of a hassle for me. Each time that I had to modify the lot before use, I think that I would become more resentful that there weren't enough available lots in the first place. Or, that lots were not made mult-functional. This is the only game in the series where I felt such unnecessary limitations on space and function.
As for the city itself, my best praise goes to the visuals of San Myshuno. You mention the progression of the neighborhoods, time-wise? That is all well and good. But from a gameplay perspective, that adds absolutely nothing to my experience. People walking around, talking, and eating does not make a city. Cities are full of other activities and, for me, that is where San Myshuno falls down.
Where's the hopscotch and the double-dutch on the streets? Tag? Kick the Can? Ding, plum, ditch? That's just stuff that I could think of for the kids. There's a lot more that adults could get up to in their free time.
In the Spice Market, for example, there's one set of monkey bars and one hoop for b-ball. The kids in my game don't even look at the monkey bars, all they do is eat. That's all that anyone does.
There are no corner bodegas and no lots for all the little shops that I would have expected to see in a neighborhood such as that one. Where is the beauty salon? The daycare? The local medical clinic/pharmacy? Why can't Sims also sit out on the stoops and greet their neighbors? Why are the buildings merely facades that can't be interacted with for any other reason than to teleport? A neighborhood like that should have been like one big, extended family. Instead, player created Sims get turned into tourists with no cameras and everyone else is still eating.
Since the neighborhoods are so tiny, use the remaining processing power to simulate LIFE!
My next point: no one is expecting the devs to simulate millions of people or square miles of populated housing. However, I did expect that a world, representative of a city, would have a greater number of usable lots for community activity than the other worlds that came before. In San Myshuno, there are places that Sims can walk. Yet, why bother? There's absolutely nothing of interest there. Once in a while, a Sim might discover a box. That's it. A box. Oh, wait. There are also posters which, like boxes, are always in the same exact place anyway. Why weren't the building facades in those areas given over for lots that players could use?
IMO, the closest approximation to a city that this series ever had was Bridgeport. That world was surpassed by cities that were created by other gamers. Los Aniegos, Beach City, Legacy Island, and St. Claire are flippin' incredible. They all provide distinctly different neighbors that one can travel to by bike, car, subway, or good, old-fashioned walking. In the case of a city like St. Claire, each and every building that one could see was functional as either a residence or a community lot. There may not have been much activity on the streets, but in my game, there was plenty to do on the actual lots. From the taller buildings, one could view actual bridges that could be crossed and bodies of water that could be used for fishing or swimming -- at any point, not just where you found a little sign.
San Myshuno is a basically a Trompe-l'oiel. It's a gorgeously fantastic one, but an artistic illusion nevertheless. I prefer more parts of my game be fact than fiction. That's just my personal opinion. That constant sleight of hand and tricks of the eye get tired very quickly. That is my major issue with the game. The second issue is the inability to correct it by creating my own or by downloading something that is better. That outlet was removed from the series entirely. In the case of San Myshuno, all we're left with are two chances per neighborhood to leave our personal imprint on the face of the city. That's far too few.
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that 🐸🐸🐸🐸 Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that plum Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that plum Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
I've already done that because @JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that plum Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
I've already done that because @JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
You're right, it is settling but I too have high standards. I like to try and buy the best... it just so happens that the Sims 4 is the best (because it's the only, lol) example of this type of game that I can find at the moment. If there was something better I'd buy it instead. I like to build and I like to story tell and this is it. This is what I have at my disposal so this is what I use. Does EA/Maxis need competition- definitely. Do I see anything like competition for EA/Maxis anywhere on the horizon- definitely not. See, I think it's competition, not lack of sales that drives a title to do better in the current business climate. Take SimCity '13. It crashed and burned. It's sales leaping at release and then bottoming out but that didn't spur EA/Maxis to release SimCity'15 as a better, greater game. No they just abandoned it and they'll do the same with the Sims. If it doesn't perform as it is then they'll just drop it for a decade or forever. They're not going to rush into production The Sims 5 fulfilling everyone's dreams based on the demands of this forum and elsewhere. They'll just reallocate the resources into a genre that they feel is doing well at that moment- MMO FPSs or Candy Doom Quake or Angry Birds 3D or something. (Shrug) It is what it is.
I've already done that because @JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
You're absolutely right. Spending money in hopes that there will be something new is very foolish. My hope is that I would see what others who are so happy with the game have seen. Unfortunately, I still don't see it. Hence, I'm taking a pass on whatever comes next.
I do believe that there's still time for improvements however. The format for the worlds, for example, are very likely set in stone. However, there is nothing stopping the devs from adding additional gameplay elements and animations that would alleviate some of the sameness of the game as it is now. Unfortunately, after CL, I see that the focus still remains on aesthetics over gameplay. I would not mind the size and content of the worlds so much if the game delivered fantastic simulation. In my layman's opinion, there is still time for that. However, as time passes. I'm losing hope.
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that plum Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
I've already done that because JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
You're right, it is settling but I too have high standards. I like to try and buy the best... it just so happens that the Sims 4 is the best (because it's the only, lol) example of this type of game that I can find at the moment. If there was something better I'd buy it instead. I like to build and I like to story tell and this is it. This is what I have at my disposal so this is what I use. Does EA/Maxis need competition- definitely. Do I see anything like competition for EA/Maxis anywhere on the horizon- definitely not. See, I think it's competition, not lack of sales that drives a title to do better in the current business climate. Take SimCity '13. It crashed and burned. It's sales leaping at release and then bottoming out but that didn't spur EA/Maxis to release SimCity'15 as a better, greater game. No they just abandoned it and they'll do the same with the Sims. If it doesn't perform as it is then they'll just drop it for a decade or forever. They're not going to rush into production The Sims 5 fulfilling everyone's dreams based on the demands of this forum and elsewhere. They'll just reallocate the resources into a genre that they feel is doing well at that moment- MMO FPSs or Candy Doom Quake or Angry Birds 3D or something. (Shrug) It is what it is.
I would love to see competition at this point. I can't say if it would be what I'd want, but it would at least drive the developers into something healthy. Perhaps.
I honestly don't believe any simulation will fulfill everyone's dreams, so to speak. I don't even know if I'd be satisfied with the result. I would have to experience it first. All I do know is what I already know and how I already feel. For me, the issue isn't as black and white and it didnt start here or end there.
The entire Sims series from beginning to 4 has inspired my imagination to a certain degree, but it appears what I'd really like hasn't been realized yet. I've always felt like I was simply taking a taste with this series.
My hopes are one day there would be a game that offers me more in that area. I enjoy the idea of simulating my own imagination. I want to simulate it from the ground up. I thought I could eventually find something that would take me there. It appears Maxis is not the company to take me there. That's really all there is to it, in layman terms.
I am less than satisfied at the present moment, but that doesn't mean I feel everyone who is enjoying themselves is settling. Sorry if it came across that way. What I meant is settling in hopes of something or other isn't healthy, especially if one is highly dissatisfied.
I guess I'm just tired of eating the same bland chicken.
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that plum Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
I've already done that because JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
You're right, it is settling but I too have high standards. I like to try and buy the best... it just so happens that the Sims 4 is the best (because it's the only, lol) example of this type of game that I can find at the moment. If there was something better I'd buy it instead. I like to build and I like to story tell and this is it. This is what I have at my disposal so this is what I use. Does EA/Maxis need competition- definitely. Do I see anything like competition for EA/Maxis anywhere on the horizon- definitely not. See, I think it's competition, not lack of sales that drives a title to do better in the current business climate. Take SimCity '13. It crashed and burned. It's sales leaping at release and then bottoming out but that didn't spur EA/Maxis to release SimCity'15 as a better, greater game. No they just abandoned it and they'll do the same with the Sims. If it doesn't perform as it is then they'll just drop it for a decade or forever. They're not going to rush into production The Sims 5 fulfilling everyone's dreams based on the demands of this forum and elsewhere. They'll just reallocate the resources into a genre that they feel is doing well at that moment- MMO FPSs or Candy Doom Quake or Angry Birds 3D or something. (Shrug) It is what it is.
I would love to see competition at this point. I can't say if it would be what I'd want, but it would at least drive the developers into something healthy. Perhaps.
I honestly don't believe any simulation will fulfill everyone's dreams, so to speak. I don't even know if I'd be satisfied with the result. I would have to experience it first. All I do know is what I already know and how I already feel. For me, the issue isn't as black and white and it didnt start here or end there.
The entire Sims series from beginning to 4 has inspired my imagination to a certain degree, but it appears what I'd really like hasn't been realized yet. I've always felt like I was simply taking a taste with this series.
My hopes are one day there would be a game that offers me more in that area. I enjoy the idea of simulating my own imagination. I want to simulate it from the ground up. I thought I could eventually find something that would take me there. It appears Maxis is not the company to take me there. That's really all there is to it, in layman terms.
I am less than satisfied at the present moment, but that doesn't mean I feel everyone who is enjoying themselves is settling. Sorry if it came across that way. What I meant is settling in hopes of something or other isn't healthy, especially if one is highly dissatisfied.
I guess I'm just tired of eating the same bland chicken.
competition is exactly what they need at this point it would drive them to be innovative instead of just churning out stuff/game/ep packs and thinking that will be enough because people just want more content to play with.
the one thing that's always bugged me about this franchise is how they go back to bare bones each new game instead of adding a bit more and then expanding upon it, just how many times have we bought a pets ep when by now it should just be in the base game. I know sims 5 will do the same so i will be done with the franchise because by the end you spend over $300 to get a complete game
if someone else had a life sim game it would make them start to do things like add pets to the base and then work on more innovative features and expansion packs thus making the game more interesting and fresh.
if ea/maxis ever make a simcity game again it's something they are going to have to do because finally they got competition in that genre and are no longer king (cities skylines is the best city sim game now) the sims needs the same competition because they have held it down for 16 years now
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that plum Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
I've already done that because JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
You're right, it is settling but I too have high standards. I like to try and buy the best... it just so happens that the Sims 4 is the best (because it's the only, lol) example of this type of game that I can find at the moment. If there was something better I'd buy it instead. I like to build and I like to story tell and this is it. This is what I have at my disposal so this is what I use. Does EA/Maxis need competition- definitely. Do I see anything like competition for EA/Maxis anywhere on the horizon- definitely not. See, I think it's competition, not lack of sales that drives a title to do better in the current business climate. Take SimCity '13. It crashed and burned. It's sales leaping at release and then bottoming out but that didn't spur EA/Maxis to release SimCity'15 as a better, greater game. No they just abandoned it and they'll do the same with the Sims. If it doesn't perform as it is then they'll just drop it for a decade or forever. They're not going to rush into production The Sims 5 fulfilling everyone's dreams based on the demands of this forum and elsewhere. They'll just reallocate the resources into a genre that they feel is doing well at that moment- MMO FPSs or Candy Doom Quake or Angry Birds 3D or something. (Shrug) It is what it is.
I would love to see competition at this point. I can't say if it would be what I'd want, but it would at least drive the developers into something healthy. Perhaps.
I honestly don't believe any simulation will fulfill everyone's dreams, so to speak. I don't even know if I'd be satisfied with the result. I would have to experience it first. All I do know is what I already know and how I already feel. For me, the issue isn't as black and white and it didnt start here or end there.
The entire Sims series from beginning to 4 has inspired my imagination to a certain degree, but it appears what I'd really like hasn't been realized yet. I've always felt like I was simply taking a taste with this series.
My hopes are one day there would be a game that offers me more in that area. I enjoy the idea of simulating my own imagination. I want to simulate it from the ground up. I thought I could eventually find something that would take me there. It appears Maxis is not the company to take me there. That's really all there is to it, in layman terms.
I am less than satisfied at the present moment, but that doesn't mean I feel everyone who is enjoying themselves is settling. Sorry if it came across that way. What I meant is settling in hopes of something or other isn't healthy, especially if one is highly dissatisfied.
I guess I'm just tired of eating the same bland chicken.
competition is exactly what they need at this point it would drive them to be innovative instead of just churning out stuff/game/ep packs and thinking that will be enough because people just want more content to play with.
the one thing that's always bugged me about this franchise is how they go back to bare bones each new game instead of adding a bit more and then expanding upon it, just how many times have we bought a pets ep when by now it should just be in the base game. I know sims 5 will do the same so i will be done with the franchise because by the end you spend over $300 to get a complete game
if someone else had a life sim game it would make them start to do things like add pets to the base and then work on more innovative features and expansion packs thus making the game more interesting and fresh.
if ea/maxis ever make a simcity game again it's something they are going to have to do because finally they got competition in that genre and are no longer king (cities skylines is the best city sim game now) the sims needs the same competition because they have held it down for 16 years now
These are good thoughts in theory. However if you think about the basic components of what a game would need to include to even be considered competition it's not terribly difficult to understand why no real competetor has emerged in 16 years time.
Is it a life simulator? Is it a building game? Is it about fashion and design? Is it an RPG?
In order to be considered competition a game would have to include the majority of the core elements that contribute to making the Sims different things to different people. The trouble is, the closer you get to recreating that model the more fans expect it to adhere to those parameters, leaving very little wiggle room for true innovation.
You don't need to see a different logo on the packaging to see the precedent for this.
4 different titles, 4 diffferent exectutive producers, 4 different takes on the core concept and with each subsequent release a more divided fanbase with varying playstyles and opinions about what makes the game great.
So the connundrum becomes if they stray too far away from the formula it can't really be considered competition
On the other hand if they are too faithful to the template, fans come to expect it to actually "be" a version of the Sims that cateres exclusively to their style of gameplay, which is a condition that already exists within the franchise.
It's too small and a bit cookie cutter with each area being a different flavor of the same general layout. ( 4 apartment buildings and a venue surrounding a festival area,) And it will become less interesting as more community lots types come out for the game since there will be no place to place them. It will require you to make some tough choices.
I wish the there was one more district dedicated to community lots and businesses. Basically what Magnolia Promenade should have been.
As big as the Windenburg countryside.
But looking like this area with the San Myshuno backdrop behind it.
I am so happy that Zerbu made a mod that lets you build what you want on special lots.
If we ever get hotels, I am building a grand one in Myshuno Meadows.
Ya, I've noticed that the city follows the same rules as the other worlds, 5 districts, each have 5 lot areas, in this case 5 apartment rooms, not apartment buildings, most of the apartments are pretty small, you would expect, considering the size of most apartments, that there would be more apartments to work with. I really do hope that they release a patch that adds more small apartments, at least double of what we currently have, I mean it's a city with apartment buildings, it only makes sense to have a lot of available apartments, with lots of sims living in them. But that's really my only complaint, when I explore the city, especially during the festivals, the city feels so alive, all these sims come gather around from all kinds of backgrounds, celebrating whatever festival there currently is, sims busking in the streets, the food stands with sims tending them calling for other sims to buy from their stand, random townies buying the food, participating in the festivals, watching the street performances, tipping the street performers, I'm really enjoying this expansion pack, with the exception of the lack of apartments.
Edited out the link because not sure what the rules are for that.
It's been on sale for like a straight 2-3 weeks now if you follow individual sales from individual retailers. Started with Target a little under a week before Black Friday, now it's Google Games.
Another less-spoken of issue is that the neighborhoods are as bland as can be. Buildings encircling a central plaza that hosts festivals. Wow, they sure pulled out all the stops when it came to creative designs!
I mean this is supposed to be an EP more or less sold by it's world. I'll say it right now: Windenburg annihilates this one in terms of appeal. That's not just a matter of preference, that's the fact that Windenburg actually has some pretty large, expansive neighborhoods with nice looks, whilst City Living just repeatedly says "I sure hope you're enthusiastic about circle-shaped neighborhoods with four buildings and a central festival plaza, cause if so, boy do I have a treat for you!"
I refuse to believe the devs are blind to how bland this EP looks because the idea that the neighborhoods copy-paste their layout isn't even opinion, it's fact. I would think if the lack of creativity is that blatant, then surely they can understand why people complain. Question is why the heck they bother selling it whilst trying to convince us this city puts Bridgeport to shame. Might as well try selling me Jelly beans whilst claiming it'll cure cancer.
Do you have anything positive say about any part of the sims 4? I like San Myshuno its cool and very lively. Sims 4 isn't sims 3 stop comparing the game they aren't the same.
They didn't compare Sims 4 to Sims 3, they compared Windenburg to San Myshuno. That's both Sims 4.
I think it falls in line with what we've received so far, as far as towns go. In the end, at this point, that's the model they are using and it's not going to change. You get a public space surrounded by four or five lots comprising a neighborhood and your get four to five neighborhoods. I think the basic design must be hardwired into the engine. I've turned to a low rise multi-purpose building in Uptown where I've placed a "cafe bookstore" on the first floor/ a day spa on the second/ a restaurant on the third/ and a karaoke bar on the fourth floor. The vertical use of space does fit an urban feel and allows me to get several primary wants into a 20x30 lot- this multi-use design also fits within an urban scheme. Ideally I would have preferred a mixed use structure with apartments on top and retail/service use on the bottom floor with loading screen to go between each section of the building and maybe a public plaza of some sort out front instead of a typical neighborhood. Much more realistic for a city but people would have really thrown a fit over getting just a handful of buildings instead of neighborhoods- lol. I really do not expect any additional patched in lots to Myshuno. There's 21 apartments lots, 3 penthouse lots, 5 ground level lots and the 64x64 Meadows Park lot for a total of 30 lots.
I'm really curious about this. I wasn't aware that multi-purpose lots were possible.
Did the yoga instructor and massage therapists all show up for work.
Was the espresso bar thing manned by a barista?
Did the bar get a bartender?
Did the chef stations and chefs work?
Were all floors well populated by visitors?
Most important, please. What lot designation did you use?
I was so discouraged about needing a separate lot for every function. However, if you've got a working multi-purpose lot, this REALLY opens up the game. I just don't know how to do it.
For example, I built a restaurant with a bar and a club in the back, but no DJ showed up. It's also aggravating that if there is more than one bar on a lot, only one bartender shows up. At least, that is what happens in my game.
Any information that you can provide would be so helpful.
@Cynna I didn't say it was a multi-purpose lot, lol, I said I built a multi-purpose building. I go into build mode and switch out the lot designation depending on what I want to do. As far as ALL the floors being well populated- they are not because when I switch out the lot designation I remove the doors from the stairwell to the floors not in use. This is a MUST for when running it as a restaurant as people will sit scattered all over the four floors of the building and outside on the cafe patio ordering food and slowing down the service. I also use a mod to increase the number of sims on a lot which means, by and large, my lots are all always well populated. It's not a perfect system and I've ridiculed it in the past with a satirical build but it works okay. For example if I want to go to the Cafe/Bookstore then I switch it to a cafe upon teleporting to the lot. It takes a bit for the employees to swap out which is a nuisance and an immersion breaker. Honestly most of the time I have it set as a Restaurant- all the restaurant staff arrive and the bartenders will arrive as well to operate the bar (I only have the one bar on the lot, in between the restaurant floor and the roof top Karaoke lounge so it does triple duty) in a restaurant, effectively opening the nightclub at the same time, along with, to a very limited sense, the Karaoke lounge. I've seen a sim use it autonomously while the restaurant was functioning but only once I think- of course I haven't been there much as I mostly eat in the plazas since there is no loading screen to eat there. I like the building I built because it simulates an urban feel by having numerous services in a single vertical design but it's far from ideal. It's just what I had to turn to in order to better use the city as I wanted to within the limitation of the game engine design.
San Myshuno is not perfect but it's no where near as bad as many of the people (some of whom haven't even purchased the EP) on this forum paint it to be. I firmly believe there is no way with current processing power available for the home market to simulate a thirty square mile/ eight million person Manhattan in this game but the fx tricks and background do a fairly good job with what they have to work with. There ARE problems with this EP and I talk about them elsewhere but the overall feel of the city is not one of them.
IMO if you really look at the city you'll see it's history mapped out in the four districts with the Spice Market being a distant past of the early part of last century- The Arts Quarter being the more recent past of the second half of the last century- The Fashion District being current times and Uptown being the future. It's clever and it's well thought out showing the player how it developed and grew. You can see all the parts of the city from each other giving a true cohesiveness to the design suggesting all these neighborhoods are in fact part of the same place, the same city- that's completely missing from the other worlds, there's nothing to suggest where exactly one part of Oasis starts and another ends and only a vague idea of what part developed first and what followed later. San Myshuno is not like that- it's well thought out.
I think a lot of people have a lot of complaints with this game- some of it well deserved- but there comes a point where one has to admit that the bar is so high with some players that there is no way it's going to be met. The bar of a sprawling thirty, twenty or even ten square mile city with a population in the millions being simulated in a way that you can set out walking around it and get lost is one of those bars. San Myshuno is the best attempt at an urban environment to date in the Sims series.
I completely disagree. There were many player made urban worlds in both TS2 and TS3 which rival anything ever produced by Maxis. This is my opinion, but I think San Myshuno is the absolute worst attempt at a city. I cannot even fathom why anyone would think 4 lots in a city is acceptable.
I don't think four lots is acceptable, who would- there's 30 but I'm not just bean counting buildable area. I'm talking about the overall feel of the entire environment. Things like finding sims out and about at night or having a great view of the bridge from my apartment window or seeing loads of people visiting the festival or having random boxes of junk about or crazy looking people and so on. I'm talking about an urban feel and EVERYTHING it encompasses which is not too say the EA/Maxis have perfected that with this pack just that it is the best attempt so far for an urban feel in it's entirety and it's not bad.
I don't agree it's the best attempt. Concerning urban atmosphere probably, but a game is more than atmosphere. You can create apartments in Sims 3 by the way, you need University though.
@JoAnne65 I never considered the University "apartments" to be real apartments either though. You couldn't really assign NPCs to a specific apartment in any real fashion. They were also just random roommates added essentially to your family since you could control them and you had to keep your apartment door locked to just yourself to keep them out which made it difficult to have people over- nearly impossible in fact without the NPCs just barging in as well. Also, as I recall any food added to one fridge on the lot appeared in every fridge meaning they could eat up all your food. It was just a communal living situation more like a Frat House at best and had nothing really to do with true apartments. In fact I can essentially do the same thing in Sims 4 using the door locks and have been since there was first a door lock mod available. So, no you can't create apartments in the Sims 3 in any better way than the Sims 4.
@JoAnne65 I never considered the University "apartments" to be real apartments either though. You couldn't really assign NPCs to a specific apartment in any real fashion. They were also just random roommates added essentially to your family since you could control them and you had to keep your apartment door locked to just yourself to keep them out which made it difficult to have people over- nearly impossible in fact without the NPCs just barging in as well. Also, as I recall any food added to one fridge on the lot appeared in every fridge meaning they could eat up all your food. It was just a communal living situation more like a Frat House at best and had nothing really to do with true apartments. In fact I can essentially do the same thing in Sims 4 using the door locks and have been since there was first a door lock mod available. So, no you can't create apartments in the Sims 3 in any better way than the Sims 4.
I quote:
The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition.
With NRaas Mastercontroller you can create any sim you want and turn them into a roommate. Without mods you can take any roommate into CAS and adjust them till they are exactly the way you want. You cannot control them (you can't control the other students on the campus, you can't control roommates, I already tried this with pets because I preferred the TS2 system where pets are uncontrollable and it works). You're right about the fridge, but I didn't say it's better than Sims 4 I said it's not as 'missing' from the game as you claimed.
Comments
The bolded part isn't the case.
I have a gym and I added spa items to it. The sauna, massage tables, yoga mats. Sims used all the equipment and sims spawned for the items along with the trainer. I think this particular set up is an exception because the EA spa has gym items in it and sims use that. So, it seems like they can be used in conjunction.
@Cynna I didn't say it was a multi-purpose lot, lol, I said I built a multi-purpose building. I go into build mode and switch out the lot designation depending on what I want to do. As far as ALL the floors being well populated- they are not because when I switch out the lot designation I remove the doors from the stairwell to the floors not in use. This is a MUST for when running it as a restaurant as people will sit scattered all over the four floors of the building and outside on the cafe patio ordering food and slowing down the service. I also use a mod to increase the number of sims on a lot which means, by and large, my lots are all always well populated. It's not a perfect system and I've ridiculed it in the past with a satirical build but it works okay. For example if I want to go to the Cafe/Bookstore then I switch it to a cafe upon teleporting to the lot. It takes a bit for the employees to swap out which is a nuisance and an immersion breaker. Honestly most of the time I have it set as a Restaurant- all the restaurant staff arrive and the bartenders will arrive as well to operate the bar (I only have the one bar on the lot, in between the restaurant floor and the roof top Karaoke lounge so it does triple duty) in a restaurant, effectively opening the nightclub at the same time, along with, to a very limited sense, the Karaoke lounge. I've seen a sim use it autonomously while the restaurant was functioning but only once I think- of course I haven't been there much as I mostly eat in the plazas since there is no loading screen to eat there. I like the building I built because it simulates an urban feel by having numerous services in a single vertical design but it's far from ideal. It's just what I had to turn to in order to better use the city as I wanted to within the limitation of the game engine design.
San Myshuno is not perfect but it's no where near as bad as many of the people (some of whom haven't even purchased the EP) on this forum paint it to be. I firmly believe there is no way with current processing power available for the home market to simulate a thirty square mile/ eight million person Manhattan in this game but the fx tricks and background do a fairly good job with what they have to work with. There ARE problems with this EP and I talk about them elsewhere but the overall feel of the city is not one of them.
IMO if you really look at the city you'll see it's history mapped out in the four districts with the Spice Market being a distant past of the early part of last century- The Arts Quarter being the more recent past of the second half of the last century- The Fashion District being current times and Uptown being the future. It's clever and it's well thought out showing the player how it developed and grew. You can see all the parts of the city from each other giving a true cohesiveness to the design suggesting all these neighborhoods are in fact part of the same place, the same city- that's completely missing from the other worlds, there's nothing to suggest where exactly one part of Oasis starts and another ends and only a vague idea of what part developed first and what followed later. San Myshuno is not like that- it's well thought out.
I think a lot of people have a lot of complaints with this game- some of it well deserved- but there comes a point where one has to admit that the bar is so high with some players that there is no way it's going to be met. The bar of a sprawling thirty, twenty or even ten square mile city with a population in the millions being simulated in a way that you can set out walking around it and get lost is one of those bars. San Myshuno is the best attempt at an urban environment to date in the Sims series.
I do love this game but I don't know if their idea for every Expansion Pack has had a "Meh, there you go" feeling. I know all of the Gurus are doing an amazing job and they feel really enthusiastic about the game when they do livestreams, but the content really lacks something when you compare it to The Sims 2 and 3.
I've done the same in a gym with the yoga instructor mat- the instructor showed up and held classes in the gym. I had a bar in the gym as well BUT you had to pay the hundred dollar fee to activate a bartender for it. There may be a mod for this- there's one to take away the fee for using the new food booths.
Yer i forgot to mention it seems to lack sims i think they need to add a option to allow people with mid to high end pc's to have more sims on lots
Maybe in future they can make new worlds and make another city world thats laid out differently and has more lots in its section or something
Did you use the specific yoga instructor mat? I'm asking because I've downloaded several spas in the gallery that don't have the correct mat and the instructor wont show up until I've edited the yoga room big enough and placed the right mat.
To the topic, I really like the city. I didn't pay for it myself though, so of course it's possible that it somehow affects my expectations. I still think if you get it from sale it's very well worth the price.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
@luimistelija Yes, I set the designation of the lot to spa during building long enough to place the instructor mat- IT HAS TO BE THE INSTRUCTOR MAT, LOL- Otherwise it won't work and that is only available to place when the lot is set as a "spa" but it doesn't disappear when the lot designation is changed. Which is what I did, changing it back to gym. And yes, the room needs to be big enough but I've used MOO (in fact, in the building in San Myshuno that I was talking about in this post) to place the mat in less space then it needs and it will work. I'm not sure exactly how small it can be though.
However, I do agree that the areas could have been a bit larger, and that there could have been more attention paid outside of those central hubs of activity. I'd like to have been able to explore the larger area more. I'd also have liked a couple more lots in each area that I could have built more community lots on. But I'm happy with the amount of apartments.
I think that building a city is always going to be challenging for the dev team, and I think they did a generally good job here. The streets feel much busier than they did to me in Bridgeport, for example. I just wish the city was a bit BIGGER!
I completely disagree. There were many player made urban worlds in both TS2 and TS3 which rival anything ever produced by Maxis. This is my opinion, but I think San Myshuno is the absolute worst attempt at a city. I cannot even fathom why anyone would think 4 lots in a city is acceptable.
I don't think four lots is acceptable, who would- there's 30 but I'm not just bean counting buildable area. I'm talking about the overall feel of the entire environment. Things like finding sims out and about at night or having a great view of the bridge from my apartment window or seeing loads of people visiting the festival or having random boxes of junk about or crazy looking people and so on. I'm talking about an urban feel and EVERYTHING it encompasses which is not too say the EA/Maxis have perfected that with this pack just that it is the best attempt so far for an urban feel in it's entirety and it's not bad.
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. For the purposes of my post I was using the words lot/building interchangeably. I realize that you built a multi-purpose building. That's why I inquired what lot designation you used.
While your solution to the space problem was very creative, it's honestly just too much of a hassle for me. Each time that I had to modify the lot before use, I think that I would become more resentful that there weren't enough available lots in the first place. Or, that lots were not made mult-functional. This is the only game in the series where I felt such unnecessary limitations on space and function.
As for the city itself, my best praise goes to the visuals of San Myshuno. You mention the progression of the neighborhoods, time-wise? That is all well and good. But from a gameplay perspective, that adds absolutely nothing to my experience. People walking around, talking, and eating does not make a city. Cities are full of other activities and, for me, that is where San Myshuno falls down.
Where's the hopscotch and the double-dutch on the streets? Tag? Kick the Can? Ding, dong, ditch? That's just stuff that I could think of for the kids. There's a lot more that adults could get up to in their free time.
In the Spice Market, for example, there's one set of monkey bars and one hoop for b-ball. The kids in my game don't even look at the monkey bars, all they do is eat. That's all that anyone does.
There are no corner bodegas and no lots for all the little shops that I would have expected to see in a neighborhood such as that one. Where is the beauty salon? The daycare? The local medical clinic/pharmacy? Why can't Sims also sit out on the stoops and greet their neighbors? Why are the buildings merely facades that can't be interacted with for any other reason than to teleport? A neighborhood like that should have been like one big, extended family. Instead, player created Sims get turned into tourists with no cameras and everyone else is still eating.
Since the neighborhoods are so tiny, use the remaining processing power to simulate LIFE!
My next point: no one is expecting the devs to simulate millions of people or square miles of populated housing. However, I did expect that a world, representative of a city, would have a greater number of usable lots for community activity than the other worlds that came before. In San Myshuno, there are places that Sims can walk. Yet, why bother? There's absolutely nothing of interest there. Once in a while, a Sim might discover a box. That's it. A box. Oh, wait. There are also posters which, like boxes, are always in the same exact place anyway. Why weren't the building facades in those areas given over for lots that players could use?
IMO, the closest approximation to a city that this series ever had was Bridgeport. That world was surpassed by cities that were created by other gamers. Los Aniegos, Beach City, Legacy Island, and St. Claire are flippin' incredible. They all provide distinctly different neighbors that one can travel to by bike, car, subway, or good, old-fashioned walking. In the case of a city like St. Claire, each and every building that one could see was functional as either a residence or a community lot. There may not have been much activity on the streets, but in my game, there was plenty to do on the actual lots. From the taller buildings, one could view actual bridges that could be crossed and bodies of water that could be used for fishing or swimming -- at any point, not just where you found a little sign.
San Myshuno is a basically a Trompe-l'oiel. It's a gorgeously fantastic one, but an artistic illusion nevertheless. I prefer more parts of my game be fact than fiction. That's just my personal opinion. That constant sleight of hand and tricks of the eye get tired very quickly. That is my major issue with the game. The second issue is the inability to correct it by creating my own or by downloading something that is better. That outlet was removed from the series entirely. In the case of San Myshuno, all we're left with are two chances per neighborhood to leave our personal imprint on the face of the city. That's far too few.
@Cynna You make a lot of good points (I agree with many of them) that, unfortunately, are the same points by and large that have been made about this game from the start. I really had no expectation after the worlds made to date for the Sims 4, and after two years of experience with the Sims 4, that there was suddenly going to be a revolution in design and game mechanics that was going to see a return to a fully open, 100 lot world in the vein of the Sims 3 nor did I have any expectation that there would suddenly be the inclusion of all the services you listed above or really any services. I really didn't expect a grand change at all. The best I hoped for was the ability to build our own apartments (something missing in and requested since the Sims 3) and even that did not come to fruition. You are also right that the solution I posted (which is not really my own unique creation, many others have suggested it) is a hassle. Yes it is. I know that and have stated it elsewhere. So's living in the city sometimes- lol but it works okay. Yes, just okay. The difference between myself and I think many others is I can play and enjoy a game that is just okay. It doesn't have to be perfect and that's a good thing because I'm not finding very many perfect games in this day and age. That era currently is past, I think. We are in a Farmville Roblox era where my son and his friends play a different cheaply made glitchy mess every other day, laugh about it and wait for Dan TDM or Gamer Chad or Iballistic Squid to introduce another one 24 hours later. They're growing up on that- wait another ten years and see how bad it is. Compared to that 🐸🐸🐸🐸 Sims 4 is high art.
It sounds as though you, personally, are fully unsatisfied with the game and have been for a while I'd say. I don't blame you but this- the game as it is- is it. I still enjoy it more than most of the other stuff I have at the moment so it works for what it costs which to me personally is not much. If you don't enjoy it then I wouldn't buy it or worry about it because I doubt it will ever change enough- at this point- to be something you will enjoy in any fashion. It's pretty set in it's ways.
Actually, there are some things about the game that I enjoy. Build mode, CAS, the fluidity of what animations there are, the beauty. However, I'm very dissatisfied with the gameplay in this game, yes. I believe that too much of their finite resources was spent in those areas to the detriment of depth of gameplay and the ability to customize/create.
I put TS4 aside for nearly a year. I decided to really give it another change when CL was announced. Although, like you, I didn't really expect an improvement. I hoped, but I didn't expect.
The reason that I began posting more regularly on these boards is because I'm not willing to sit by and settle for just "okay". Money is money and I like to feel that mine is well spent. There is definitely a trend toward more mediocre to abysmal games these days. It will continue if there is no kind of push back against it. I, and others like me, are pushing back by voicing what we would like to see. It is on the developers/suits whether or not they deliver. However, eventually their bottom line will be affected. The average age of gamers are adults, not children. Children don't remember when things were better. They enjoy what they have because that's all they know. Older gamers remember the golden era of gaming. Some developers are still willing to deliver it. The Sims used to be such a franchise. I would like them to stay that way.
This is their first true attempt at mobile game era type fare. (That is my opinion, of course.) I feel EA testing the waters to see how much the populace is willing to tolerate. I'd rather eventually say goodbye to a series that I loved, rather than to settle for just "okay".
I've already done that because @JasonAnthonySterling is right on mark with his/her last post (the one you quoted). It was very well stated and I found myself agreeing with everything that was said. Other than the fact that I won't simply settle. I have high standards, I guess.
Thing is, buying and complaining won't get you heard. Buying something you don't like makes no sense. The other side is seeing the money coming in from these so-called dissatisfied customers. In their eyes, they can't be that dissatisfied if they're continuing to invest in the product.
Not to mention the groundwork is already laid down. To expect anything outside of the pattern at this point is foolish.
You're right, it is settling but I too have high standards. I like to try and buy the best... it just so happens that the Sims 4 is the best (because it's the only, lol) example of this type of game that I can find at the moment. If there was something better I'd buy it instead. I like to build and I like to story tell and this is it. This is what I have at my disposal so this is what I use. Does EA/Maxis need competition- definitely. Do I see anything like competition for EA/Maxis anywhere on the horizon- definitely not. See, I think it's competition, not lack of sales that drives a title to do better in the current business climate. Take SimCity '13. It crashed and burned. It's sales leaping at release and then bottoming out but that didn't spur EA/Maxis to release SimCity'15 as a better, greater game. No they just abandoned it and they'll do the same with the Sims. If it doesn't perform as it is then they'll just drop it for a decade or forever. They're not going to rush into production The Sims 5 fulfilling everyone's dreams based on the demands of this forum and elsewhere. They'll just reallocate the resources into a genre that they feel is doing well at that moment- MMO FPSs or Candy Doom Quake or Angry Birds 3D or something. (Shrug) It is what it is.
You're absolutely right. Spending money in hopes that there will be something new is very foolish. My hope is that I would see what others who are so happy with the game have seen. Unfortunately, I still don't see it. Hence, I'm taking a pass on whatever comes next.
I do believe that there's still time for improvements however. The format for the worlds, for example, are very likely set in stone. However, there is nothing stopping the devs from adding additional gameplay elements and animations that would alleviate some of the sameness of the game as it is now. Unfortunately, after CL, I see that the focus still remains on aesthetics over gameplay. I would not mind the size and content of the worlds so much if the game delivered fantastic simulation. In my layman's opinion, there is still time for that. However, as time passes. I'm losing hope.
I would love to see competition at this point. I can't say if it would be what I'd want, but it would at least drive the developers into something healthy. Perhaps.
I honestly don't believe any simulation will fulfill everyone's dreams, so to speak. I don't even know if I'd be satisfied with the result. I would have to experience it first. All I do know is what I already know and how I already feel. For me, the issue isn't as black and white and it didnt start here or end there.
The entire Sims series from beginning to 4 has inspired my imagination to a certain degree, but it appears what I'd really like hasn't been realized yet. I've always felt like I was simply taking a taste with this series.
My hopes are one day there would be a game that offers me more in that area. I enjoy the idea of simulating my own imagination. I want to simulate it from the ground up. I thought I could eventually find something that would take me there. It appears Maxis is not the company to take me there. That's really all there is to it, in layman terms.
I am less than satisfied at the present moment, but that doesn't mean I feel everyone who is enjoying themselves is settling. Sorry if it came across that way. What I meant is settling in hopes of something or other isn't healthy, especially if one is highly dissatisfied.
I guess I'm just tired of eating the same bland chicken.
competition is exactly what they need at this point it would drive them to be innovative instead of just churning out stuff/game/ep packs and thinking that will be enough because people just want more content to play with.
the one thing that's always bugged me about this franchise is how they go back to bare bones each new game instead of adding a bit more and then expanding upon it, just how many times have we bought a pets ep when by now it should just be in the base game. I know sims 5 will do the same so i will be done with the franchise because by the end you spend over $300 to get a complete game
if someone else had a life sim game it would make them start to do things like add pets to the base and then work on more innovative features and expansion packs thus making the game more interesting and fresh.
if ea/maxis ever make a simcity game again it's something they are going to have to do because finally they got competition in that genre and are no longer king (cities skylines is the best city sim game now) the sims needs the same competition because they have held it down for 16 years now
These are good thoughts in theory. However if you think about the basic components of what a game would need to include to even be considered competition it's not terribly difficult to understand why no real competetor has emerged in 16 years time.
Is it a life simulator? Is it a building game? Is it about fashion and design? Is it an RPG?
In order to be considered competition a game would have to include the majority of the core elements that contribute to making the Sims different things to different people. The trouble is, the closer you get to recreating that model the more fans expect it to adhere to those parameters, leaving very little wiggle room for true innovation.
You don't need to see a different logo on the packaging to see the precedent for this.
4 different titles, 4 diffferent exectutive producers, 4 different takes on the core concept and with each subsequent release a more divided fanbase with varying playstyles and opinions about what makes the game great.
So the connundrum becomes if they stray too far away from the formula it can't really be considered competition
On the other hand if they are too faithful to the template, fans come to expect it to actually "be" a version of the Sims that cateres exclusively to their style of gameplay, which is a condition that already exists within the franchise.
I wish the there was one more district dedicated to community lots and businesses. Basically what Magnolia Promenade should have been.
As big as the Windenburg countryside.
But looking like this area with the San Myshuno backdrop behind it.
I am so happy that Zerbu made a mod that lets you build what you want on special lots.
If we ever get hotels, I am building a grand one in Myshuno Meadows.
@JoAnne65 I never considered the University "apartments" to be real apartments either though. You couldn't really assign NPCs to a specific apartment in any real fashion. They were also just random roommates added essentially to your family since you could control them and you had to keep your apartment door locked to just yourself to keep them out which made it difficult to have people over- nearly impossible in fact without the NPCs just barging in as well. Also, as I recall any food added to one fridge on the lot appeared in every fridge meaning they could eat up all your food. It was just a communal living situation more like a Frat House at best and had nothing really to do with true apartments. In fact I can essentially do the same thing in Sims 4 using the door locks and have been since there was first a door lock mod available. So, no you can't create apartments in the Sims 3 in any better way than the Sims 4.