Even the presentation is different: Late Night releases a new type of Hot Tub, and no it's not blasted all over the streams and trailers as though the hot tub is somehow a "major" selling point of the pack. They new it was minor and kept it as such. The same cannot be said for these Food stands, as making "new cultural food" is practically becoming a running gag at this point.
Also, this the pure sign you have no idea what you're talking about. Hot Tubs were on the FRONT and BACK cover of Late Night;
I cannot DEAL with people who don't even research what they're talking about. You didn't even know about the professions bug before I mentioned it, and you can't even tell us what bugs are in all 3 of the ownable business's.
I actually remember the advertising for Late Night and the focus of that picture was that they could sit in their hot tub on the roof of a really high building, overlooking the city (which was very new to the franchise I think?). Not the hot tub itself.
And as for doing research before you talk, you never reacted to my clearly edited camp base in Egypt after you said camp bases weren’t editable in Sims 3.
They weren't editable until the Ambitions Edit World patch. That's what I said
You enter "Edit Town" mode and then click on the World icon, that takes you to the world. Before then, we only had access to the Vacation worlds, while on Vacation.
I didn't say we never got it, I said we had to wait and it wasn't included when the pack came out.
--
Also, the trailers for CL, C&D and JA only feature Food Stalls in split second appearances. Not as often as Hot Tubs were advertised for TS3. So it still makes no sense.
That isn’t true. You could load into any vacation world from edit world in Sims 3. The Ambitions patch added the world editing tools and the ability to place new lots in game, it didn’t add in the ability to edit destinations.
Even the presentation is different: Late Night releases a new type of Hot Tub, and no it's not blasted all over the streams and trailers as though the hot tub is somehow a "major" selling point of the pack. They new it was minor and kept it as such. The same cannot be said for these Food stands, as making "new cultural food" is practically becoming a running gag at this point.
Also, this the pure sign you have no idea what you're talking about. Hot Tubs were on the FRONT and BACK cover of Late Night;
I cannot DEAL with people who don't even research what they're talking about. You didn't even know about the professions bug before I mentioned it, and you can't even tell us what bugs are in all 3 of the ownable business's.
I actually remember the advertising for Late Night and the focus of that picture was that they could sit in their hot tub on the roof of a really high building, overlooking the city (which was very new to the franchise I think?). Not the hot tub itself.
And as for doing research before you talk, you never reacted to my clearly edited camp base in Egypt after you said camp bases weren’t editable in Sims 3.
They weren't editable until the Ambitions Edit World patch. That's what I said
You enter "Edit Town" mode and then click on the World icon, that takes you to the world. Before then, we only had access to the Vacation worlds, while on Vacation.
I didn't say we never got it, I said we had to wait and it wasn't included when the pack came out.
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Also, the trailers for CL, C&D and JA only feature Food Stalls in split second appearances. Not as often as Hot Tubs were advertised for TS3. So it still makes no sense.
I regret you didn’t say that in the other topic because now I have to derail this one but I will:
No you didn’t. Besides, I edited it while on vacation (using testingcheats by the way, which was there from the beginning). I don’t need a bonfire when I’m not there.
And apart from the fact they always showed that hot tub on a roof (I remember it being one of the first things I wanted to do), I already said I also hated the 43th hot tub or bbq in Sims 3 (I do remember them being advertised as whoopylookwhatwevegotforyou in SP’s) That doesn’t undermine the OP’s actual point in any way.
The copying and pasting in The Sims 1 - 3 didn't bother me though. Only if they made you pay for it more than once.
The Sims 4 so far hasn't made me pay for the same content twice, if they have re-used objects like Food Carts or the WooHoo bush, it hasn't affected the amount of new gameplay animated objects we've got. It's always been a bonus extra, that's factored into the actual price. I'm not buying a Game Pack, with the same 6 gameplay objects we've had before.
I believe that it did affect the amount of new game play and animation in that, for a pack called Jungle Adventure, it didn't provide much of the adventure part. Those things weren't recycled as a sort of...sacrifice...in order to give us an Indiana Jones type of adventure. They were recycled in order to provide an amazingly beautiful world and the creatures within it. However, that is not game play. It's great, but unless my Sims can live in that world, that's not the feature that will draw me back time and again.
The thing that would have brought me back is the tomb raiding. The teasers and the live streams all seemed to be leading up to that one most important feature. Yet, tomb raiding turned out to be incredibly dull. So dull, in fact, that, halfway through the live stream that was supposed to be dedicated to tomb raiding, the gurus had to fall back on that old standby of demonstrating CAS and build/buy items. The game play portion lasted roughly only thirty minutes in real time. That included the Guru speeding up the game because, watching the Sims write, or dig, or socialize with a statue is dead boring. (I also must point out that neither Sim reacted worth a fig to that statue that suddenly started glowing and talking!)
JA has no puzzles to solve, no keys to find, no secret rooms to discover. In order to get past an obstacle, we players aren't required to use our own brain power. We need only sit through a multiple choice quiz. A quiz which the game will ultimately answer for us, if our Sim's skill is high enough. Which happens to be an exact copy of the Vet career. ::sigh::
Things were recycled in order to give us that? It's sad when getting to the tomb is more eventful than the tomb itself.
I know that we're not supposed to compare TS4 with the older games. However, since I don't know how else to best illustrate my point, I'm comparing:
In World adventures, I took my Sim into a tomb. IIRC, mid-way through, I realized that there was a secret room full of treasure. I could see it. It was there, taunting me. I got to the end of the tomb, yet, I still hadn't gotten her into that room. Being a completionist, my Sim was not leaving until I had gotten her in there. I had her pore over every inch of that tomb trying to find the way. Eventually, I solved the puzzle and my Sim was able to grab all of that precious loot.
By the time that she finally crawled out of that tomb (days later, mind you), my Sim was nearly out of food and smelled like a sick rhino. However, I, the player, felt wonderful. I finished that tomb with a genuine sense of accomplishment and with treasure that was well-earned through my own devices. It wasn't weighted multiple-choice questions or sheer luck. It was me. I solved the mystery and the journey was amazing!
That is the kind of adventure that I was expecting from JA. That was the kind of adventure that they teased us with. Regardless, it wasn't what we got. For me, it wasn't worth recycling so much in order to achieve so little game play in return. That is when I have a problem with recycling.
I hate seeing recycled stuff when I've bought a new pack. Paying twice (or more) for the same content (even though it might just be a small part of it), you can't exactly be happy about that.
For me the point of this topic (and issue) lies in this paragraph:
My personal stance on recycling content goes like this: if a pack manages to deliver quality content, then recycling existing content can be warranted if smaller features are recycled. If someone pointed out content that Vampires recycled for example, I would hesitate to pass judgement because Vampires was a solid pack. I have no way of knowing why they chose to recycle it, but I believe in good faith and benefit of the doubt, so if the pack is solid and there's recycled content, I'll assume they needed to recycle content so they could focus on putting more effort elsewhere.
And the fact they apparently recycled something that doesn’t function right (I have no experience with those careers though, so I take a step back as to if that’s actually the case here). The ivy is a bit easy from a developer’s perspective (at least change something about it, if only the colour), but as far as I’m concerned not a disaster to be honest. I agree with @Cynna concerning the tomb raiding.
About "new" staff, that was first thing I notice when Jungle adventure come out:
orange - Jungle Adventure
blue - Outdoor Retreat
violet - Vampires
non - Base Game
And now same story is happen. The corner couch, cat scratchers, pets beds and boxes are just re-colors selling as a new objects.
New chairs and desk are accidentally perfect fitted to the bed and commode with paws. It's seem to be pretty obvious that part of staff was cut from game pack.
I felt bad after buying Laundry Stuff because it's only washing machines and few furnitures, but finally I really enjoy it. The new one is too much for me, no way I bought it even for the amazing aquarium
Also worth mentioning the staff is on twitter trying to claim the hamster is like 4-5 different pets due to reskins.
About "new" staff, that was first thing I notice when Jungle adventure come out:
orange - Jungle Adventure
blue - Outdoor Retreat
violet - Vampires
non - Base Game
And now same story is happen. The corner couch, cat scratchers, pets beds and boxes are just re-colors selling as a new objects.
New chairs and desk are accidentally perfect fitted to the bed and commode with paws. It's seem to be pretty obvious that part of staff was cut from game pack.
I felt bad after buying Laundry Stuff because it's only washing machines and few furnitures, but finally I really enjoy it. The new one is too much for me, no way I bought it even for the amazing aquarium
Also worth mentioning the staff is on twitter trying to claim the hamster is like 4-5 different pets due to reskins.
This is precisely what I mean...
Wow, that is shocking, really shocking. Is it me or have they been recycling more and more stuff recently? It seems like most of the objects in this pack are recolours/reskins, or "new" objects that were clearly meant to be part of a set in C&D. But nice one to the person who made the comparison photos, thanks for easily pointing it all out.
I agree with a lot of recycling. It's sad that I could predict half the pack before it came out. 1) New Collectables that don't do anything 2) New venue that's not really new 3) New Foods - I personally never cared about what a sim eats
A clue to see if there are actual new ideas in the pack, is to see what has been added to the "club" menu in Get Together and then evaluate that. I think Jungle Adventures didn't have anything new added to the clubs, so I skipped buying the pack. I might pick it up when it goes on sale.
About "new" staff, that was first thing I notice when Jungle adventure come out:
orange - Jungle Adventure
blue - Outdoor Retreat
violet - Vampires
non - Base Game
And now same story is happen. The corner couch, cat scratchers, pets beds and boxes are just re-colors selling as a new objects.
New chairs and desk are accidentally perfect fitted to the bed and commode with paws. It's seem to be pretty obvious that part of staff was cut from game pack.
I felt bad after buying Laundry Stuff because it's only washing machines and few furnitures, but finally I really enjoy it. The new one is too much for me, no way I bought it even for the amazing aquarium
Also worth mentioning the staff is on twitter trying to claim the hamster is like 4-5 different pets due to reskins.
This is precisely what I mean...
That's actually really sad. Quite misleading too.
I just don't get why we've come to this point with The Sims, getting back to the whole slow releases/recycling topic.
At this point, 4 years after TS3's base game was released, we had World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Lunar Lakes, Lucky Palms, Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Aurora Skies, and every stuff pack up to 70s, 80s & 90s Stuff.
About "new" staff, that was first thing I notice when Jungle adventure come out:
orange - Jungle Adventure
blue - Outdoor Retreat
violet - Vampires
non - Base Game
And now same story is happen. The corner couch, cat scratchers, pets beds and boxes are just re-colors selling as a new objects.
New chairs and desk are accidentally perfect fitted to the bed and commode with paws. It's seem to be pretty obvious that part of staff was cut from game pack.
I felt bad after buying Laundry Stuff because it's only washing machines and few furnitures, but finally I really enjoy it. The new one is too much for me, no way I bought it even for the amazing aquarium
Also worth mentioning the staff is on twitter trying to claim the hamster is like 4-5 different pets due to reskins.
This is precisely what I mean...
That's actually really sad. Quite misleading too.
I just don't get why we've come to this point with The Sims, getting back to the whole slow releases/recycling topic.
At this point, 4 years after TS3's base game was released, we had World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Lunar Lakes, Lucky Palms, Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Aurora Skies, and every stuff pack up to 70s, 80s & 90s Stuff.
The big one that jumps out to me....check the patterns on the drawers and night table pictured next to the bookcase. They share an identical theme.
Now to be fair, it is completely possible the Stuff pack theme thought it'd be neat to make items tying into an existing theme.....but it's also possible they just blatantly cut a furniture set in half and the second half is about to become available for $10.
And I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but this has happened a dozen times over with various different EA games: it happens because consumers allow it to happen. They prioritize instant gratification over having any sort of standards for their purchases, and EA gladly feeds off that for profit.
Tough love is absolutely neccesary to ensure quality remains. Unfortunately, not every community understands that...
About "new" staff, that was first thing I notice when Jungle adventure come out:
orange - Jungle Adventure
blue - Outdoor Retreat
violet - Vampires
non - Base Game
And now same story is happen. The corner couch, cat scratchers, pets beds and boxes are just re-colors selling as a new objects.
New chairs and desk are accidentally perfect fitted to the bed and commode with paws. It's seem to be pretty obvious that part of staff was cut from game pack.
I felt bad after buying Laundry Stuff because it's only washing machines and few furnitures, but finally I really enjoy it. The new one is too much for me, no way I bought it even for the amazing aquarium
Also worth mentioning the staff is on twitter trying to claim the hamster is like 4-5 different pets due to reskins.
This is precisely what I mean...
That's actually really sad. Quite misleading too.
I just don't get why we've come to this point with The Sims, getting back to the whole slow releases/recycling topic.
At this point, 4 years after TS3's base game was released, we had World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Lunar Lakes, Lucky Palms, Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Aurora Skies, and every stuff pack up to 70s, 80s & 90s Stuff.
The big one that jumps out to me....check the patterns on the drawers and night table pictured next to the bookcase. They share an identical theme.
Now to be fair, it is completely possible the Stuff pack theme thought it'd be neat to make items tying into an existing theme.....but it's also possible they just blatantly cut a furniture set in half and the second half is about to become available for $10.
And I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but this has happened a dozen times over with various different EA games: it happens because consumers allow it to happen. They prioritize instant gratification over having any sort of standards for their purchases, and EA gladly feeds off that for profit.
Tough love is absolutely neccesary to ensure quality remains. Unfortunately, not every community understands that...
I'm not a fan of packs sharing a similar theme myself. In my honest opinion, an expansion pack should seek to cover a theme (e.g pets), improve on it vastly from its predecessor entries, and then it's onto the next theme. I don't like how they keep repeating similar themes and dragging out the same concepts. I personally like family play/pets in my game, but I've seen other players complain that a huge chunk of 2017 has consisted of the same themes (family/pets) with little to no variety.
Then there's also the issue that Cats & Dogs did not come with a lot of pet furniture. The entire pack came with only two pet beds, and both resembled rugs more than an actual pet bed. It felt like they skimped out on stuff in general with that pack. This new stuff pack honestly feels like they know they did, and they're designing it specifically for existing owners of the pack to get what should've been in it in the first place. That's my main issue with this pack.
My other issue is the fact they chose to do that in conjunction with cutting up the pets theme expansion, only providing cats and dogs, so they could charge us $10.00 extra for ONE additional small pet that was once included with birds and butterflies in TS2, for instance. So now we are expected to pay a total of $50.00 for what is STILL a FRACTION of The Sims 3: Pets.
I've never heard more about what a studio can't do rather than what they can and it's frankly embarrassing for everyone involved. I realize the bosses at the helm are trying to make as much money as possible. I realize that EA is a corporation whose sole dedication is to it's stock holders. I understand. What I don't understand is how the devs claim to be serious artists and designers and yet allow themselves to be overlorded by suits. Or even how they, the devs, continue the practice of turning in such sub-par work. If more devs dedicated themselves to the integrity of their art/designs, then we would not be in the situation we're in. EA doesn't make games unless there are devs to design them. It might be worth something for the devs of TS4 to remind EA of that instead of defending and aiding the monstrosity this franchise is becoming.
You know what's *mind boggling* to me? They want to make money and we simmers, I do believe have shown, that we are definitely willing to shell it out. At this point, we would probably be willing to spend a bit more money on an expansion pack, game pack, OR stuff pack that was truly unique, creative, innovative, and had plenty of content for us to play with instead of just giving us content from previous Sims games and saying..."Look what you get to pay for again! Oh, but we split it up.". Am I the only one who thinks they should've had most of what we had in the Sims 3 already in the Sims 4 base game so they would have to give us different expansions? Things like weather, laundry, holidays, and things of that nature and THEN make stuff packs/game packs adding more onto those aspects while expansion packs actually...felt, like you know, an expansion? Geebus. :/
You know what's *mind boggling* to me? They want to make money and we simmers, I do believe have shown, that we are definitely willing to shell it out. At this point, we would probably be willing to spend a bit more money on an expansion pack, game pack, OR stuff pack that was truly unique, creative, innovative, and had plenty of content for us to play with instead of just giving us content from previous Sims games and saying..."Look what you get to pay for again! Oh, but we split it up.". Am I the only one who thinks they should've had most of what we had in the Sims 3 already in the Sims 4 base game so they would have to give us different expansions? Things like weather, laundry, holidays, and things of that nature and THEN make stuff packs/game packs adding more onto those aspects while expansion packs actually...felt, like you know, an expansion? Geebus.
I do agree that certain things should be added in the base game. For example, weather (not Seasons, weather) and collections.
Things like likes/dislikes, failure states and such should be part of the base game. Those things are the features that help to solidify a Sim's personality. It shouldn't be necessary to keep waiting for them year after year, every time that a new game is released.
What really upset me was a new bush that simply reused animation from GET TOGETHER. I mean, that's just unacceptable. How is it that over ten years ago, The Sims 2 was so careful in its animation, always make sure it was the best it could be. I noticed the other day, couches and beds even react to your sims sitting or laying in them. I mean, you have this old game, and the animation is much better than it is here, in the newer installment. The devs of the sims 4 are cutting corners. It's very disappointing.
What really upset me was a new bush that simply reused animation from GET TOGETHER. I mean, that's just unacceptable. How is it that over ten years ago, The Sims 2 was so careful in its animation, always make sure it was the best it could be. I noticed the other day, couches and beds even react to your sims sitting or laying in them. I mean, you have this old game, and the animation is much better than it is here, in the newer installment. The devs of the sims 4 are cutting corners. It's very disappointing.
The animations/physics in The Sims 2 were awesome. Almost every object conforms to your Sim interacting with it. Bed pillows even move around with the Sim as they sleep and push it where they move. Even the Sims 2 Sims' hair moves along with them.
There was always such a strong attentiveness to detail in The Sims 2 that was lost with the later entries, especially TS4. It really feels like the developers back then were very thorough and proficient at making sure, with each pack, the Sims would only get smarter. Features like interests, talents, turn ons/turn offs, influence, and more really contributed to this.
The reusing of remodeled items/animations could be done in a productive way if they just tweaked certain animations for certain things.
One bad example is the ice cream machine from Cool Kitchen Stuff. For the ice cream itself, the Sims ate it using the same animation for fruit or something. Like they just held the ice cream cone in their palm and took chunks out of the ice cream instead of wrapping their fingers around the bottom part of the cone and licking the icecream. I think had they tweaked this animation to fit something that resembled the way most people look when they "eat ice cream", this would have been fine.
I don't mind reusing animations for a remodeled item. But at least take the time to remodel the design of the item and tweak the reused animations to make it work with each other. It should make sense. I don't care about reusing the animation for putting dishes away to something like putting laundry in the dryer/washer ... just tweak it if it needs to be tweaked. I also didn't care that the ice cream/popcorn makers were just remodels of each other. I enjoyed that we got both. That was a good decision and it made sense to reuse the animation for the popcorn/ice cream. But that's 1 good decision amongst how many bad ones...
I also agree 110% with OP that EA is a multi billion dollar game developer and shouldn't be suffering on the budget side of things. EA is in the top 5 wealthiest game devs alongside companies like Square Enix, Blizzard, Microsoft (XBOX), and Sony. The problem is that EA makes most of their money off of their sports titles. The Sims is a lot different ... obviously internal stuff was going on with the development of TS4 and even with TS3. I think people messed up internally first to give EA the impression that The Sims is too much work, which is why their teams may be struggling now. Who knows though.
I also don't mind them reusing parts of old systems and using that as a foundation to create new systems. I think it works. But a lot of problems with TS4 is the lack of versatility with their gameplay functions. Players want more options, not less, and I don't think they want to be forced to stick to linear functions. Even if that linear function is fun for a while, I think they will be bored and never use it again. So give players the tools they need to change and tweaks things to their liking so that their experience can be unique to their play style. CaW would - to me - help with creating a more dynamic feel to the game. Maybe you want to create a new world, or place objects differently in the game. If CaW existed, maybe you would be able to download worlds from the Gallery and explore the different ways people make cool worlds like they do with lots. That would be really awesome. But we don't have that for TS4. Instead we have something like OR that never changes. It always looks the same. You just go there for a vacation, and that's the only way it exists in your game. With Bon Voyage in TS2, we got 3 different vacation spots and the ability to design our own hotels. With TS4 we don't have the same abilities.
I just want TS4 to stop cutting corners by making it their main purpose to reuse and recycle content. If they are going to make that their main purpose, they should be reinventing gameplay systems first and foremost. Like DO was amazing because you could create your own restaurant and own it. It would be cooler if we actually were the chef as well, but overall it was a great pack. I don't know what Jackjack is talking about in terms of bugs and glitches though ... yeah, DO has its bugs and glitches, but NOT as much as GTW's retail system. I haven't played GTW's retail in a long time, but perhaps I'll revisit it ... but when DO was initially released, it was better than GTW's system at the time. Maybe something was updated which is why Jackjack believes it's a good sytem ... but I remember employees being completely useless. And I knew why it was happening. It was because automated actions like "sniffing the air" around good food would interrupt the retail actions. The coding should have placed retail actions at the top. I could understand with low star employees that their priority would be low, but for high star employees they should be relatively perfect, but they weren't. My high star employees were just as bad as my low star employees. Like I said, it was a technical issue. Who knows if they fixed it. Point is after the first couple of updates after GTW, I just gave up hope that they would fix the system.
Also like DeservedCrit says ... reusing systems and tweaking them to new gameplay isn't a problem until you start copypasting systems that are buggy and not that great to begin with. Imagine if they took the time to revisit the old retail system of GTW and update it, ironing out the bugs and polishing the system, and then repackaging C&D with the new and improved career and then include the fixes in their next update before C&D is released ... imagine if they approached it that way. I find it crazy that anyone thinks DO is buggier than GTW ... like yes DO has its faults in the restaurant system, but GTW is WAY more flawed in terms of its actual system. But is it even that good that we have a decent system with flaws as well as a bad system with flaws that aren't being worked on? Repackage an old system if you must, but find a way to make it new and relevant while simultaneously fixing some of the issues with it. Otherwise, what's the point? It would have been even better if they just made a retail system that worked well to begin with so that they could have reused it for the vet career. Or at least fix the issues after it is released so that reusing it down the line won't populate even more of the SAME issues in OTHER areas of the game ... it's not that difficult to understand.
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Oh, also @jackjack_k ... about TS2. I wanted to respond to some of the stuff you said directed at @DeservedCriticism.
Not to mention, The Sims 2 would recycle content as well. You realise that Bon Voyage meant that Hotel gameplay revolved around Restaurants as well? So if you already spent years with Restaurants in the Sims 2, you already played with the majority of what Hotels offer. They also made you pay for Cars as a paid feature of Nightlife, even though Cars were free with The Sims 2 (free download because of the backlash after Cars were removed from the base game, and then tried to be sold later).
#1: Hotels and restaurants had a similar gameplay style ... but hotels were legitimately revamped from the restaurant gameplay. Also the restaurant gameplay of TS2 is pretty dang solid and actually pretty in-depth. The AI was definitely a lot better in TS2 compared to TS4, and the coding was obviously better tested for bugs/glitches. Anyways, the hotel system in TS2 was pretty awesome as well ... Bon Voyage was more about doing stuff with your Sims on vacation rather than running and owning your own hotel. But you could still build your own hotel, own a vacation home, have room service, do other things AT the hotel ... there were a bunch of cool things you could do with the hotel system that went way beyond Nightlife's restaurant system. Also you could order room service. And maids cleaned up your hotel. Okay, everything about BV was just really cool and way better than any EP that has been released for TS4. I'd also like to note that TS2 was transitioning from TS1 and opened up so many new doors ... the game was extremely different than TS1 - in a good way - both in graphics and in programming. The way they made those EP's felt complete. Maybe in practicality there wasn't a lot ... but it was all new and fresh (Don't try to compare Hot Date's restaurant system to Nightlife please), and the ideas they decided to flesh out were great choices. I don't even know if there wasn't a lot to begin with anyways, I'm just going off of the way you seem to be speaking about TS2 as though they weren't really offering anything new compared to TS4. Even though TS2 was pushing beyond anything that was done before in the franchise at that point ... TS2 was really creative. More than TS4. There was the exchange, the album maker, Strangerhood ... everything just felt like making The Sims as creative and awesome as it could be was the main focus. And I don't think we should give credit to EA for the development of TS2 ... they did NOT develop TS2. That was Will Wright and the original team of Maxis devs from TS1. EA PUBLISHED The Sims - because back then funding was really hard to come by for game devs, and there were no alternatives to really obtain funding - and didn't actually start developing the game until Bon Voyage. Up until that point, Maxis was the sole developer and EA was the publisher. So that means TS1+expansions, TS2, Nightlife, University Life, Pets, and Seasons were ALL developed by Maxis. Bon Voyage, Freetime, and Apartment Life were all developed WITH the help of EA when Maxis SPLIT with Will Wright and some devs going to work on Spore while the rest went to The Sims Studio at EA. So I think before we start comparing the work of EA to Maxis ... we should recognise that Maxis/The Sims was Will Wright's brainchild and started off way back in the 80's. Meaning that anyone who was there during the creation of The Sims 1 had an entire history and experience that is vastly different to that of EA's. There is a reason TS2 and TS1 are revered by fans. Make no mistake about it. Will Wright had lead those projects, or at least was heavily invested in them, along with the people surrounding those projects, and they were moving into uncharted territory that had never been seen before. It was groundbreaking for the gaming world. They didn't have years of experience in marketing/testing to base their decisions off of. Simply their intuition and what felt good and what felt right. Of course at that time EA was merely providing the funding for Maxis ... so EA wasn't making decisions in the development of the game. They had very little to do with it other than keeping the PR image in mind.
SO ... basically what I'm trying to say is that TS1/2 was motivated by different things compared to EA's TS4. The original Maxis devs during that time had a lot more freedom because EA wasn't developing the game. So they had different motivations. And how many of those same devs or project managers are still with Maxis/EA? Very few I would imagine, if any are even still around. But I digress. Point is that TS2 was always aiming for higher and better. It was about making money, but also about providing a great game. One that reflected the psychological and philosophical nature within humanity. So if they took an older system they made in a previous pack and revamped it, whatever they did worked. The way they packaged it worked. The systems they used worked. All of it worked and felt complete. It didn't feel like a cop out. It felt like a genuine pack. Also, it's funny that you should point out the first pack that EA started to develop with the devs from Maxis ... hmm, I wonder whose idea it was to do something like that? Let's not forget who started The Sims and the history it came from ... it did not come from success, nor did anyone outside of Maxis believe the game had anything going for it ... so the success it received was due to the dedication of everyone who believed in the project. Not the publisher who had to be repeatedly convinced. The publisher who merely seized a risky opportunity to make a profit while letting other people do their work until they realised that the game started taking off, prompting them to start controlling the project which ended up pushing away the original creator of the game who realised what the publisher was doing and decided to move on to something else...
#2: I don't remember cars like that. Cars were never in the base game, and I never got the impression that they should have been. Perhaps they should have, but the only thing that TS2 added to the base game were garage doors and driveways 2 yrs after Nightlife came out. Maybe you're right. Maybe they were finally added in the base game after people complained for that long. But like I said, no cars were ever added to the base game. Only garage doors and driveways. And besides, all the vehicles added from Nightlife were just carpool or service cars/trucks/helicopters from the careers. It was a neat addition but it wasn't the reason I bought NL at all. NL was all about the vampires, bowling alleys, karaoke bars, nightclubs, new dating system, and >>RESTAURANTS<<. It was cool that NL had cars as well and maybe they should have been in base game all along but I didn't think it was that much of a game changer. I still liked NL with or without cars. I would have preferred them to be in the base game though ... especially now in TS4, I am surprised that we don't have cars. It's a shame. Even though I didn't really care for them, I still liked having them because I felt like they "completed" my house. But I never thought of a car-less TS2 base game in the same way that I did a toddler-less TS4 base game...
Ever since TS4 came out there's been a lot of talking about how bad its engine is. I think the amount of recycling going on is yet another sign of that. They're limited in how many new things they can implement, so they stick to what's already part of the game and just tweak it. Vampires was something fresh, and oddly enough, it came out around the time TS4's sales were in a rather poor condition... Looks to me like they gave us something so good just to get on good terms with players who turned their back on them, and then it was back to the usual. This just makes me angrier because we've been sampled the actual potential of 4 and nothing came out of it. No more brand new concepts and ideas, only re-skins sold in a pretty packaging. That's also why EPs lack features so much.
I don't mind rehashing objects, it's the animations that bug me the most. No sims game has made me bored so quickly before. You get sick of watching the same old thing over and over. The same socials, dancing, I see parts of animations I recognize from base game times in the new ones we're getting... Unacceptable AND boring. Games are fueled by animations and they're skimping out on them so much it makes TS4 forgettable and annoying in the long run. I'm not able to play it in long session and I typically have to take month long breaks just so I don't get too irritated with how little there's actually in it. And mind you this game is 4 years old.
You know what's *mind boggling* to me? They want to make money and we simmers, I do believe have shown, that we are definitely willing to shell it out. At this point, we would probably be willing to spend a bit more money on an expansion pack, game pack, OR stuff pack that was truly unique, creative, innovative, and had plenty of content for us to play with instead of just giving us content from previous Sims games and saying..."Look what you get to pay for again! Oh, but we split it up.". Am I the only one who thinks they should've had most of what we had in the Sims 3 already in the Sims 4 base game so they would have to give us different expansions? Things like weather, laundry, holidays, and things of that nature and THEN make stuff packs/game packs adding more onto those aspects while expansion packs actually...felt, like you know, an expansion? Geebus.
I've been saying that for a while now. I mean, honestly at this point in the game the base should come with weather, cars, open world, CASt, pets, laundry, and the base items that have been around since Sims 1. I mean, way back then we got dishwashers as part of the base. Yet we didn't with Sims 4. Did we have to pay for dishwashers? I can't remember, or did they give them to us via a patch?
You know what's *mind boggling* to me? They want to make money and we simmers, I do believe have shown, that we are definitely willing to shell it out. At this point, we would probably be willing to spend a bit more money on an expansion pack, game pack, OR stuff pack that was truly unique, creative, innovative, and had plenty of content for us to play with instead of just giving us content from previous Sims games and saying..."Look what you get to pay for again! Oh, but we split it up.". Am I the only one who thinks they should've had most of what we had in the Sims 3 already in the Sims 4 base game so they would have to give us different expansions? Things like weather, laundry, holidays, and things of that nature and THEN make stuff packs/game packs adding more onto those aspects while expansion packs actually...felt, like you know, an expansion? Geebus.
I've been saying that for a while now. I mean, honestly at this point in the game the base should come with weather, cars, open world, CASt, pets, laundry, and the base items that have been around since Sims 1. I mean, way back then we got dishwashers as part of the base. Yet we didn't with Sims 4. Did we have to pay for dishwashers? I can't remember, or did they give them to us via a patch?
Comments
This post is why EA never got another dime from me after GTW, & never will.
And a Sims 5? Not on your life.
I've had enough.
That isn’t true. You could load into any vacation world from edit world in Sims 3. The Ambitions patch added the world editing tools and the ability to place new lots in game, it didn’t add in the ability to edit destinations.
Thisss!
No you didn’t. Besides, I edited it while on vacation (using testingcheats by the way, which was there from the beginning). I don’t need a bonfire when I’m not there.
And apart from the fact they always showed that hot tub on a roof (I remember it being one of the first things I wanted to do), I already said I also hated the 43th hot tub or bbq in Sims 3 (I do remember them being advertised as whoopylookwhatwevegotforyou in SP’s) That doesn’t undermine the OP’s actual point in any way.
ETA: Oh, and what drake_mccarty says.
I believe that it did affect the amount of new game play and animation in that, for a pack called Jungle Adventure, it didn't provide much of the adventure part. Those things weren't recycled as a sort of...sacrifice...in order to give us an Indiana Jones type of adventure. They were recycled in order to provide an amazingly beautiful world and the creatures within it. However, that is not game play. It's great, but unless my Sims can live in that world, that's not the feature that will draw me back time and again.
The thing that would have brought me back is the tomb raiding. The teasers and the live streams all seemed to be leading up to that one most important feature. Yet, tomb raiding turned out to be incredibly dull. So dull, in fact, that, halfway through the live stream that was supposed to be dedicated to tomb raiding, the gurus had to fall back on that old standby of demonstrating CAS and build/buy items. The game play portion lasted roughly only thirty minutes in real time. That included the Guru speeding up the game because, watching the Sims write, or dig, or socialize with a statue is dead boring. (I also must point out that neither Sim reacted worth a fig to that statue that suddenly started glowing and talking!)
JA has no puzzles to solve, no keys to find, no secret rooms to discover. In order to get past an obstacle, we players aren't required to use our own brain power. We need only sit through a multiple choice quiz. A quiz which the game will ultimately answer for us, if our Sim's skill is high enough. Which happens to be an exact copy of the Vet career. ::sigh::
Things were recycled in order to give us that? It's sad when getting to the tomb is more eventful than the tomb itself.
I know that we're not supposed to compare TS4 with the older games. However, since I don't know how else to best illustrate my point, I'm comparing:
In World adventures, I took my Sim into a tomb. IIRC, mid-way through, I realized that there was a secret room full of treasure. I could see it. It was there, taunting me. I got to the end of the tomb, yet, I still hadn't gotten her into that room. Being a completionist, my Sim was not leaving until I had gotten her in there. I had her pore over every inch of that tomb trying to find the way. Eventually, I solved the puzzle and my Sim was able to grab all of that precious loot.
By the time that she finally crawled out of that tomb (days later, mind you), my Sim was nearly out of food and smelled like a sick rhino. However, I, the player, felt wonderful. I finished that tomb with a genuine sense of accomplishment and with treasure that was well-earned through my own devices. It wasn't weighted multiple-choice questions or sheer luck. It was me. I solved the mystery and the journey was amazing!
That is the kind of adventure that I was expecting from JA. That was the kind of adventure that they teased us with. Regardless, it wasn't what we got. For me, it wasn't worth recycling so much in order to achieve so little game play in return. That is when I have a problem with recycling.
And the fact they apparently recycled something that doesn’t function right (I have no experience with those careers though, so I take a step back as to if that’s actually the case here). The ivy is a bit easy from a developer’s perspective (at least change something about it, if only the colour), but as far as I’m concerned not a disaster to be honest. I agree with @Cynna concerning the tomb raiding.
Also worth mentioning the staff is on twitter trying to claim the hamster is like 4-5 different pets due to reskins.
This is precisely what I mean...
Wow, that is shocking, really shocking. Is it me or have they been recycling more and more stuff recently? It seems like most of the objects in this pack are recolours/reskins, or "new" objects that were clearly meant to be part of a set in C&D. But nice one to the person who made the comparison photos, thanks for easily pointing it all out.
A clue to see if there are actual new ideas in the pack, is to see what has been added to the "club" menu in Get Together and then evaluate that. I think Jungle Adventures didn't have anything new added to the clubs, so I skipped buying the pack. I might pick it up when it goes on sale.
That's actually really sad. Quite misleading too.
I just don't get why we've come to this point with The Sims, getting back to the whole slow releases/recycling topic.
At this point, 4 years after TS3's base game was released, we had World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Lunar Lakes, Lucky Palms, Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Aurora Skies, and every stuff pack up to 70s, 80s & 90s Stuff.
The big one that jumps out to me....check the patterns on the drawers and night table pictured next to the bookcase. They share an identical theme.
Now to be fair, it is completely possible the Stuff pack theme thought it'd be neat to make items tying into an existing theme.....but it's also possible they just blatantly cut a furniture set in half and the second half is about to become available for $10.
And I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but this has happened a dozen times over with various different EA games: it happens because consumers allow it to happen. They prioritize instant gratification over having any sort of standards for their purchases, and EA gladly feeds off that for profit.
Tough love is absolutely neccesary to ensure quality remains. Unfortunately, not every community understands that...
I'm not a fan of packs sharing a similar theme myself. In my honest opinion, an expansion pack should seek to cover a theme (e.g pets), improve on it vastly from its predecessor entries, and then it's onto the next theme. I don't like how they keep repeating similar themes and dragging out the same concepts. I personally like family play/pets in my game, but I've seen other players complain that a huge chunk of 2017 has consisted of the same themes (family/pets) with little to no variety.
Then there's also the issue that Cats & Dogs did not come with a lot of pet furniture. The entire pack came with only two pet beds, and both resembled rugs more than an actual pet bed. It felt like they skimped out on stuff in general with that pack. This new stuff pack honestly feels like they know they did, and they're designing it specifically for existing owners of the pack to get what should've been in it in the first place. That's my main issue with this pack.
My other issue is the fact they chose to do that in conjunction with cutting up the pets theme expansion, only providing cats and dogs, so they could charge us $10.00 extra for ONE additional small pet that was once included with birds and butterflies in TS2, for instance. So now we are expected to pay a total of $50.00 for what is STILL a FRACTION of The Sims 3: Pets.
And that is ridiculous.
I do agree that certain things should be added in the base game. For example, weather (not Seasons, weather) and collections.
Things like likes/dislikes, failure states and such should be part of the base game. Those things are the features that help to solidify a Sim's personality. It shouldn't be necessary to keep waiting for them year after year, every time that a new game is released.
In principle, I agree with what you're saying. However, in reality, people have got to eat.
The animations/physics in The Sims 2 were awesome. Almost every object conforms to your Sim interacting with it. Bed pillows even move around with the Sim as they sleep and push it where they move. Even the Sims 2 Sims' hair moves along with them.
There was always such a strong attentiveness to detail in The Sims 2 that was lost with the later entries, especially TS4. It really feels like the developers back then were very thorough and proficient at making sure, with each pack, the Sims would only get smarter. Features like interests, talents, turn ons/turn offs, influence, and more really contributed to this.
One bad example is the ice cream machine from Cool Kitchen Stuff. For the ice cream itself, the Sims ate it using the same animation for fruit or something. Like they just held the ice cream cone in their palm and took chunks out of the ice cream instead of wrapping their fingers around the bottom part of the cone and licking the icecream. I think had they tweaked this animation to fit something that resembled the way most people look when they "eat ice cream", this would have been fine.
I don't mind reusing animations for a remodeled item. But at least take the time to remodel the design of the item and tweak the reused animations to make it work with each other. It should make sense. I don't care about reusing the animation for putting dishes away to something like putting laundry in the dryer/washer ... just tweak it if it needs to be tweaked. I also didn't care that the ice cream/popcorn makers were just remodels of each other. I enjoyed that we got both. That was a good decision and it made sense to reuse the animation for the popcorn/ice cream. But that's 1 good decision amongst how many bad ones...
I also agree 110% with OP that EA is a multi billion dollar game developer and shouldn't be suffering on the budget side of things. EA is in the top 5 wealthiest game devs alongside companies like Square Enix, Blizzard, Microsoft (XBOX), and Sony. The problem is that EA makes most of their money off of their sports titles. The Sims is a lot different ... obviously internal stuff was going on with the development of TS4 and even with TS3. I think people messed up internally first to give EA the impression that The Sims is too much work, which is why their teams may be struggling now. Who knows though.
I also don't mind them reusing parts of old systems and using that as a foundation to create new systems. I think it works. But a lot of problems with TS4 is the lack of versatility with their gameplay functions. Players want more options, not less, and I don't think they want to be forced to stick to linear functions. Even if that linear function is fun for a while, I think they will be bored and never use it again. So give players the tools they need to change and tweaks things to their liking so that their experience can be unique to their play style. CaW would - to me - help with creating a more dynamic feel to the game. Maybe you want to create a new world, or place objects differently in the game. If CaW existed, maybe you would be able to download worlds from the Gallery and explore the different ways people make cool worlds like they do with lots. That would be really awesome. But we don't have that for TS4. Instead we have something like OR that never changes. It always looks the same. You just go there for a vacation, and that's the only way it exists in your game. With Bon Voyage in TS2, we got 3 different vacation spots and the ability to design our own hotels. With TS4 we don't have the same abilities.
I just want TS4 to stop cutting corners by making it their main purpose to reuse and recycle content. If they are going to make that their main purpose, they should be reinventing gameplay systems first and foremost. Like DO was amazing because you could create your own restaurant and own it. It would be cooler if we actually were the chef as well, but overall it was a great pack. I don't know what Jackjack is talking about in terms of bugs and glitches though ... yeah, DO has its bugs and glitches, but NOT as much as GTW's retail system. I haven't played GTW's retail in a long time, but perhaps I'll revisit it ... but when DO was initially released, it was better than GTW's system at the time. Maybe something was updated which is why Jackjack believes it's a good sytem ... but I remember employees being completely useless. And I knew why it was happening. It was because automated actions like "sniffing the air" around good food would interrupt the retail actions. The coding should have placed retail actions at the top. I could understand with low star employees that their priority would be low, but for high star employees they should be relatively perfect, but they weren't. My high star employees were just as bad as my low star employees. Like I said, it was a technical issue. Who knows if they fixed it. Point is after the first couple of updates after GTW, I just gave up hope that they would fix the system.
Also like DeservedCrit says ... reusing systems and tweaking them to new gameplay isn't a problem until you start copypasting systems that are buggy and not that great to begin with. Imagine if they took the time to revisit the old retail system of GTW and update it, ironing out the bugs and polishing the system, and then repackaging C&D with the new and improved career and then include the fixes in their next update before C&D is released ... imagine if they approached it that way. I find it crazy that anyone thinks DO is buggier than GTW ... like yes DO has its faults in the restaurant system, but GTW is WAY more flawed in terms of its actual system. But is it even that good that we have a decent system with flaws as well as a bad system with flaws that aren't being worked on? Repackage an old system if you must, but find a way to make it new and relevant while simultaneously fixing some of the issues with it. Otherwise, what's the point? It would have been even better if they just made a retail system that worked well to begin with so that they could have reused it for the vet career. Or at least fix the issues after it is released so that reusing it down the line won't populate even more of the SAME issues in OTHER areas of the game ... it's not that difficult to understand.
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Oh, also @jackjack_k ... about TS2. I wanted to respond to some of the stuff you said directed at @DeservedCriticism.
#1: Hotels and restaurants had a similar gameplay style ... but hotels were legitimately revamped from the restaurant gameplay. Also the restaurant gameplay of TS2 is pretty dang solid and actually pretty in-depth. The AI was definitely a lot better in TS2 compared to TS4, and the coding was obviously better tested for bugs/glitches. Anyways, the hotel system in TS2 was pretty awesome as well ... Bon Voyage was more about doing stuff with your Sims on vacation rather than running and owning your own hotel. But you could still build your own hotel, own a vacation home, have room service, do other things AT the hotel ... there were a bunch of cool things you could do with the hotel system that went way beyond Nightlife's restaurant system. Also you could order room service. And maids cleaned up your hotel. Okay, everything about BV was just really cool and way better than any EP that has been released for TS4. I'd also like to note that TS2 was transitioning from TS1 and opened up so many new doors ... the game was extremely different than TS1 - in a good way - both in graphics and in programming. The way they made those EP's felt complete. Maybe in practicality there wasn't a lot ... but it was all new and fresh (Don't try to compare Hot Date's restaurant system to Nightlife please), and the ideas they decided to flesh out were great choices. I don't even know if there wasn't a lot to begin with anyways, I'm just going off of the way you seem to be speaking about TS2 as though they weren't really offering anything new compared to TS4. Even though TS2 was pushing beyond anything that was done before in the franchise at that point ... TS2 was really creative. More than TS4. There was the exchange, the album maker, Strangerhood ... everything just felt like making The Sims as creative and awesome as it could be was the main focus. And I don't think we should give credit to EA for the development of TS2 ... they did NOT develop TS2. That was Will Wright and the original team of Maxis devs from TS1. EA PUBLISHED The Sims - because back then funding was really hard to come by for game devs, and there were no alternatives to really obtain funding - and didn't actually start developing the game until Bon Voyage. Up until that point, Maxis was the sole developer and EA was the publisher. So that means TS1+expansions, TS2, Nightlife, University Life, Pets, and Seasons were ALL developed by Maxis. Bon Voyage, Freetime, and Apartment Life were all developed WITH the help of EA when Maxis SPLIT with Will Wright and some devs going to work on Spore while the rest went to The Sims Studio at EA. So I think before we start comparing the work of EA to Maxis ... we should recognise that Maxis/The Sims was Will Wright's brainchild and started off way back in the 80's. Meaning that anyone who was there during the creation of The Sims 1 had an entire history and experience that is vastly different to that of EA's. There is a reason TS2 and TS1 are revered by fans. Make no mistake about it. Will Wright had lead those projects, or at least was heavily invested in them, along with the people surrounding those projects, and they were moving into uncharted territory that had never been seen before. It was groundbreaking for the gaming world. They didn't have years of experience in marketing/testing to base their decisions off of. Simply their intuition and what felt good and what felt right. Of course at that time EA was merely providing the funding for Maxis ... so EA wasn't making decisions in the development of the game. They had very little to do with it other than keeping the PR image in mind.
SO ... basically what I'm trying to say is that TS1/2 was motivated by different things compared to EA's TS4. The original Maxis devs during that time had a lot more freedom because EA wasn't developing the game. So they had different motivations. And how many of those same devs or project managers are still with Maxis/EA? Very few I would imagine, if any are even still around. But I digress. Point is that TS2 was always aiming for higher and better. It was about making money, but also about providing a great game. One that reflected the psychological and philosophical nature within humanity. So if they took an older system they made in a previous pack and revamped it, whatever they did worked. The way they packaged it worked. The systems they used worked. All of it worked and felt complete. It didn't feel like a cop out. It felt like a genuine pack. Also, it's funny that you should point out the first pack that EA started to develop with the devs from Maxis ... hmm, I wonder whose idea it was to do something like that? Let's not forget who started The Sims and the history it came from ... it did not come from success, nor did anyone outside of Maxis believe the game had anything going for it ... so the success it received was due to the dedication of everyone who believed in the project. Not the publisher who had to be repeatedly convinced. The publisher who merely seized a risky opportunity to make a profit while letting other people do their work until they realised that the game started taking off, prompting them to start controlling the project which ended up pushing away the original creator of the game who realised what the publisher was doing and decided to move on to something else...
#2: I don't remember cars like that. Cars were never in the base game, and I never got the impression that they should have been. Perhaps they should have, but the only thing that TS2 added to the base game were garage doors and driveways 2 yrs after Nightlife came out. Maybe you're right. Maybe they were finally added in the base game after people complained for that long. But like I said, no cars were ever added to the base game. Only garage doors and driveways. And besides, all the vehicles added from Nightlife were just carpool or service cars/trucks/helicopters from the careers. It was a neat addition but it wasn't the reason I bought NL at all. NL was all about the vampires, bowling alleys, karaoke bars, nightclubs, new dating system, and >>RESTAURANTS<<. It was cool that NL had cars as well and maybe they should have been in base game all along but I didn't think it was that much of a game changer. I still liked NL with or without cars. I would have preferred them to be in the base game though ... especially now in TS4, I am surprised that we don't have cars. It's a shame. Even though I didn't really care for them, I still liked having them because I felt like they "completed" my house. But I never thought of a car-less TS2 base game in the same way that I did a toddler-less TS4 base game...
I don't mind rehashing objects, it's the animations that bug me the most. No sims game has made me bored so quickly before. You get sick of watching the same old thing over and over. The same socials, dancing, I see parts of animations I recognize from base game times in the new ones we're getting... Unacceptable AND boring. Games are fueled by animations and they're skimping out on them so much it makes TS4 forgettable and annoying in the long run. I'm not able to play it in long session and I typically have to take month long breaks just so I don't get too irritated with how little there's actually in it. And mind you this game is 4 years old.
Is it a part of the $3.1 billion held overseas ? For sure, they weren't used in the development.
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The Sims 4 General DiscussionSame here.
I've been saying that for a while now. I mean, honestly at this point in the game the base should come with weather, cars, open world, CASt, pets, laundry, and the base items that have been around since Sims 1. I mean, way back then we got dishwashers as part of the base. Yet we didn't with Sims 4. Did we have to pay for dishwashers? I can't remember, or did they give them to us via a patch?
We got them patched in.