They announced that "Sims 4 isn't going anywhere" and that we just started the "second wave of Sims 4 packs" with Cats & Dogs so judging by that, Sims 4 has at least 2 more years to stick around.
Makes you wonder what they will bring. I mean that statement about pets being the last of the biggest packs.
They mean big as in the pack everyone wants to buy and on a technical stand point.
Hello
I do know what they meant!
University and seasons must be the smallest and least wanted then?
To be honest I would have guessed at seasons being one of the biggest and most requested expansion packs.
So reading that statement made me wonder
Pets was always the biggest EP request. It’s true seasons is a big request but it’s harder to do a pet ep where everyone wants to add and personalize there cat and dog rather then to add 4 seasons and some activities.
I think you might be underestimating adding weather to the game there a tiny bit And Pets and Seasons are equal where it comes to being the most requested.
Which still can’t be the reason why EA already has released Cats&Dogs but not the weather.
Weather is actually quite easy to make and even the mobile Sims Games have nice weather too. But EA’s policy clearly seems to be to make TS4 so different from TS3 that EA still can sell both games for their full price. So EA found a way to make pets sufficiently different from the Sims 3 Pets to still follow this policy. But weather is weather and can’t really be very different from game to game. Therefore Seasons still hasn’t been released for TS4 too because such a release would likely just finally force EA to give up on the idea about selling TS3 too. Seasons is popular though. So it still gives meaning for EA to maybe release Seasons as the very last EP for TS4 too.
You keep answering your own questions.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Seasons as well as Pets is because Seasons isn't actually finished? You know, because they're both an absolutely HUGE expansion? Also, companies don't wait to release things because they don't care. They do things in a certain order because it holds consumer interest. I also don't believe that Seasons will be the last pack.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Weather is because it's only easy if you don't care. "Oh, it's raining. Puddles and automatic watering of plants."
It's not just a copy-paste job. Why should Sims 4, using more powerful computer specs, be exactly like Sims 3 when the teams are different and the engine is different and the graphical style is different?
Seasons isn’t a massively huge expansion. Popular? Yes. Comparable to development on pets? No. Seasons is mostly special effects, which is the one thing the people making Sims 4 specialize in. If anything this pack should be a walk in the park granted they can follow through on the many statements they have made pertaining to what worlds will experience seasonal changes and what not.
After seeing how C&D was handled, I’m not overly confident that a Seasons EP will be finished, let alone any good. They already have a hurdle to get over, which is getting Seasons enabled for every world in the game. If they can’t manage that (which I’m still not convinced that they can.... too many contradictory statements about this game) then the pack will be a universal flop.
They announced that "Sims 4 isn't going anywhere" and that we just started the "second wave of Sims 4 packs" with Cats & Dogs so judging by that, Sims 4 has at least 2 more years to stick around.
Makes you wonder what they will bring. I mean that statement about pets being the last of the biggest packs.
They mean big as in the pack everyone wants to buy and on a technical stand point.
Hello
I do know what they meant!
University and seasons must be the smallest and least wanted then?
To be honest I would have guessed at seasons being one of the biggest and most requested expansion packs.
So reading that statement made me wonder
Pets was always the biggest EP request. It’s true seasons is a big request but it’s harder to do a pet ep where everyone wants to add and personalize there cat and dog rather then to add 4 seasons and some activities.
I think you might be underestimating adding weather to the game there a tiny bit And Pets and Seasons are equal where it comes to being the most requested.
Which still can’t be the reason why EA already has released Cats&Dogs but not the weather.
Weather is actually quite easy to make and even the mobile Sims Games have nice weather too. But EA’s policy clearly seems to be to make TS4 so different from TS3 that EA still can sell both games for their full price. So EA found a way to make pets sufficiently different from the Sims 3 Pets to still follow this policy. But weather is weather and can’t really be very different from game to game. Therefore Seasons still hasn’t been released for TS4 too because such a release would likely just finally force EA to give up on the idea about selling TS3 too. Seasons is popular though. So it still gives meaning for EA to maybe release Seasons as the very last EP for TS4 too.
You keep answering your own questions.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Seasons as well as Pets is because Seasons isn't actually finished? You know, because they're both an absolutely HUGE expansion? Also, companies don't wait to release things because they don't care. They do things in a certain order because it holds consumer interest. I also don't believe that Seasons will be the last pack.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Weather is because it's only easy if you don't care. "Oh, it's raining. Puddles and automatic watering of plants."
It's not just a copy-paste job. Why should Sims 4, using more powerful computer specs, be exactly like Sims 3 when the teams are different and the engine is different and the graphical style is different?
You still seem to just seek desperately after excuses like “it isn’t finished”, “the devs only have two hands”, “It is difficult to make” etc when the truth is that all the important decisions instead are taken by EA’s top managers who had all the hands they needed to make the packs both faster and bigger but decided that this wouldn’t be profitable anyway.
EA decided to close the Salt Lake Studio down because it wasn’t needed for TS4 and just recently EA closed the Visceral Studio down too instead of just letting in make TS4 packs too and in spite of the fact that Visceral even already was located in the same building as the TS4 teams.
EA devs are very skilled and they can easily make everything for the game as EA’s management want them to. But they can’t do it when EA just doesn’t want it. Therefore they only havve made small packs for TS4 and EPs with reduced content compared to the EPs for the earlier games. The reason clearly is that EA doesn’t think that it will be profitable to release packs for more than a certain amount each year because then too many simmers will likely stop buying everything and the packs will therefore just steal customers from eachother. Also EA doesn’t want to make the packs bigger because then the packs will just become more expensive to make and without sufficiently effect on the sales numbers to make it worth it.
But yes I am still convinced that EA soon will announce TS5 too because all the reasons why EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years still seem to be valuable. Even the fact that TS1 simmers became so angry when TS2 was released that the sales numbers for TS2 only became half as high as the sales numbers for TS1 never scared EA from also releasing TS3 and TS4 after 5 years and I am quite sure that the Sims 4 simmers haven’t scared EA from also releasing TS5 either!
I heard that this is going to be the last Sims game.
Where did you hear that? Through the grapevine?
So that's what the developers were saying as Sims 4 was being developed, while everyone was still playing Sims 3. Personally, I really think it depends on how well Sims 4 does on the market whether they will attempt a Sims 5 or not. Personally I think that they need ideas that haven't already been done in previous Sims titles. Though I would honestly get a Sims 5 just for height differences between adult sims and children having the chance of inheriting it (short mother could have short daughter or somewhere between her and dad's height, son with short mother could be taller than mom but shorter than dad or about dad's height.) But hey, my husband also has a brother who is shorter than their mom, his brothers range from 5'6" to 6'4". So maybe weird anomalies like that could be present too.
Yeah they'd have to figure out the coding for tilting heads up/down for kisses and short sims on tiptoes, but that's real life.
Link? I don’t remember them saying something bold like that ever. Grant Rodiek said there wouldn’t be a Sims 5 if Sims 4 wouldn’t sell, but a. that was Grant Rodiek, not EA and b. Sims 4 does sell.
(they actually made Sims 3 very Mods unfriendly by the way, it’s definitely not easier to create CC for the game than it was for Sims 2 and is for Sims 4; the latter came with a Mods folder even and for Sims 2 all you have to do is create a folder and name it Downloads)
Part of me just rolls my eyes when I see people saying, with the utmost conviction and against all evidence and without proof, "Sims 5 will soon be announced". The only 'evidence' is that in the past, Sims games lasted about 4/5 years. However, Gurus have repeatedly said that they will keep making Sims 4 packs until it doesn't make sense. This is a beautifully vague statement, but regardless basically means, "Get used to packs because we're not going to stop making them." And why would they want to? Their jobs depend on it.
We got an official fake Sims 5 trailer, which is actually a pretty good sign that nothing's coming.
The design, the engine, the style... it's all a 'built for the long haul' kind of thing. Even the way SIms 4 is mod-friendly.
EA is not going to bother with looking for new players with Sims 5 while Sims 3 and 4 are still selling. They're getting new players with ports. No new designs for items or packs, just porting teams to get Sims 4 out to anybody who doesn't have a PC, which is a much larger audience than sitting down and making a new Sims 5. Ports and packs are where the money's at.
In fact all this porting is the single biggest reason we won't get a Sims 5.
Prepping a list of mods to add after Infants are placed into the game. Because real life isn't 'nice'.
Part of me just rolls my eyes when I see people saying, with the utmost conviction and against all evidence and without proof, "Sims 5 will soon be announced". The only 'evidence' is that in the past, Sims games lasted about 4/5 years. However, Gurus have repeatedly said that they will keep making Sims 4 packs until it doesn't make sense. This is a beautifully vague statement, but regardless basically means, "Get used to packs because we're not going to stop making them." And why would they want to? Their jobs depend on it.
I have it in the same way with people who without proof are saying that EA now suddenly for no reason at all has changed everything and now never will release a new Sims game but just release packs for TS4 forever until the game is perfect. Why should EA change its policy and way of doing business for no reason at all?
Has EA been bought by somebody else who have different ideas?
Has EA suddenly got a new board of directors who aren’t business men but just want to develop games for fun?
Has our societies suddenly changed such that we now want to just entertain eachother instead of earning money from our jobs and careers?
Or whatever?
We got an official fake Sims 5 trailer, which is actually a pretty good sign that nothing's coming.
So somebody made a false Sims 5 trailer for fun like so many others have made fake trailers about other things in future Sims games. Why does this suddenly prove that the trailer was made by EA to tell us that EA won’t be making TS5 but instead just packs for TS4 forever?
The design, the engine, the style... it's all a 'built for the long haul' kind of thing. Even the way SIms 4 is mod-friendly.
Just still not so mod-friendly as TS3. But TS3 got a successor anyway. So how does this prove the opposite thing for TS4?
EA is not going to bother with looking for new players with Sims 5 while Sims 3 and 4 are still selling. They're getting new players with ports. No new designs for items or packs, just porting teams to get Sims 4 out to anybody who doesn't have a PC, which is a much larger audience than sitting down and making a new Sims 5. Ports and packs are where the money's at.
In fact all this porting is the single biggest reason we won't get a Sims 5.
EA hired Blind Squirrel Entertainment to make a port of TS4 and its packs as fast as possible to consoles too because it was so cheap that it made EA change its earlier decision about not making a Sims game for consoles anymore. But the speed this is done with shows how important it is to get it over with before TS5 is released even though it will hurt the sales numbers to release packs this fast. There isn’t much money in this port though because almost all dedicated simmers already own the PC version and therefore are unlikely to buy the console version of the exact same game too. So the console version is only targeted at new young simmers who play their games on consoles and don’t have any gaming computer.
So things haven’t changed. All the money is mainly from selling packs for the PC version which is about to be too old to be attractive for new young simmers in the main target group. Sales numbers for the packs are therefore gong down and the basegame doesn’t really sell at all anymore. To repair this EA needs to release a new basegame and make it so different from TS3 and TS4 that new simmers still will be motivated to sometimes buy TS3 and TS4 too.
But the dream about packs-forever has dominated simmers since TS1 where the fans became so angry at EA for releasing TS2 that more than half of the Sims 1 fans never bought TS2! The reason of course was that they loved TS1 and had invested so much money in it that they just refused to switch to a new game and start over. This hasn’t changed at all except that simmers have learned that they can’t force EA to again make packs for an earlier Sims game just by refusing to buy the new one. But the dream about the current game just getting packs forever is still there just like it was for all the earlier big Sims games
I prefer seasons to pets personally. But I would rather have new things than rehashing the same ideas over and over and over. Let season be in base game next time!
These past feature are all part of a sims game.
People want to see them again, hopefully better than the time before.
The sims 4 would be a flop without past favorites.
They do add new things into each pack.
Seasons is such a popular pack. Its unlikely it would ever been in the base game like pets wouldn't.
It would be nice if it did make it into a base game tho
So some things I noticed about differences in the Sims 3 and Sims 4.
1) Sims 3 was a lot easier to create content for and install custom items for. This led a lot of people to get items at The Sims Resource rather than the in-game store. So they made it a lot harder to create custom content, and consequently, there's a lot less on The Sims Resource to download.
2) Items could be purchased via in-game store in Sims 3, now it seems we need to buy these stuff packs with hardly anything for ridiculous amounts of money. I for one have not done this, nor have I bought most of the game packs. Whereas yes, Sims 3 had a lot of stuff packs, but there were PLENTY of items with expansions. Now they're just releasing half-finished Game Packs and making you pay for stuff. I want some REAL expansion packs, thank you very much.
I do like being able to replicate the wide variety of body shapes in Sims 4. Sims 3 had fit and fat but every fat person still had an hourglass figure. Since when does that happen in a truly fat person? I've even been able to replicate my barrel-shaped, waistless figure fairly well.
Hi
I agree with most of your post.
There is loads of CC/Mods for both TS3\TS4
The sims resource isn't the best place for it much like modthesims Both are well known. Other websites/blogs you will find more.
There is so much out there for now for both series.
Create sims body and face shape are so much better for me in this game.
They announced that "Sims 4 isn't going anywhere" and that we just started the "second wave of Sims 4 packs" with Cats & Dogs so judging by that, Sims 4 has at least 2 more years to stick around.
Makes you wonder what they will bring. I mean that statement about pets being the last of the biggest packs.
They mean big as in the pack everyone wants to buy and on a technical stand point.
Hello
I do know what they meant!
University and seasons must be the smallest and least wanted then?
To be honest I would have guessed at seasons being one of the biggest and most requested expansion packs.
So reading that statement made me wonder
Pets was always the biggest EP request. It’s true seasons is a big request but it’s harder to do a pet ep where everyone wants to add and personalize there cat and dog rather then to add 4 seasons and some activities.
I think you might be underestimating adding weather to the game there a tiny bit And Pets and Seasons are equal where it comes to being the most requested.
Which still can’t be the reason why EA already has released Cats&Dogs but not the weather.
Weather is actually quite easy to make and even the mobile Sims Games have nice weather too. But EA’s policy clearly seems to be to make TS4 so different from TS3 that EA still can sell both games for their full price. So EA found a way to make pets sufficiently different from the Sims 3 Pets to still follow this policy. But weather is weather and can’t really be very different from game to game. Therefore Seasons still hasn’t been released for TS4 too because such a release would likely just finally force EA to give up on the idea about selling TS3 too. Seasons is popular though. So it still gives meaning for EA to maybe release Seasons as the very last EP for TS4 too.
You keep answering your own questions.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Seasons as well as Pets is because Seasons isn't actually finished? You know, because they're both an absolutely HUGE expansion? Also, companies don't wait to release things because they don't care. They do things in a certain order because it holds consumer interest. I also don't believe that Seasons will be the last pack.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Weather is because it's only easy if you don't care. "Oh, it's raining. Puddles and automatic watering of plants."
It's not just a copy-paste job. Why should Sims 4, using more powerful computer specs, be exactly like Sims 3 when the teams are different and the engine is different and the graphical style is different?
Seasons isn’t a massively huge expansion. Popular? Yes. Comparable to development on pets? No. Seasons is mostly special effects, which is the one thing the people making Sims 4 specialize in. If anything this pack should be a walk in the park granted they can follow through on the many statements they have made pertaining to what worlds will experience seasonal changes and what not.
After seeing how C&D was handled, I’m not overly confident that a Seasons EP will be finished, let alone any good. They already have a hurdle to get over, which is getting Seasons enabled for every world in the game. If they can’t manage that (which I’m still not convinced that they can.... too many contradictory statements about this game) then the pack will be a universal flop.
They announced that "Sims 4 isn't going anywhere" and that we just started the "second wave of Sims 4 packs" with Cats & Dogs so judging by that, Sims 4 has at least 2 more years to stick around.
Makes you wonder what they will bring. I mean that statement about pets being the last of the biggest packs.
They mean big as in the pack everyone wants to buy and on a technical stand point.
Hello
I do know what they meant!
University and seasons must be the smallest and least wanted then?
To be honest I would have guessed at seasons being one of the biggest and most requested expansion packs.
So reading that statement made me wonder
Pets was always the biggest EP request. It’s true seasons is a big request but it’s harder to do a pet ep where everyone wants to add and personalize there cat and dog rather then to add 4 seasons and some activities.
I think you might be underestimating adding weather to the game there a tiny bit And Pets and Seasons are equal where it comes to being the most requested.
Which still can’t be the reason why EA already has released Cats&Dogs but not the weather.
Weather is actually quite easy to make and even the mobile Sims Games have nice weather too. But EA’s policy clearly seems to be to make TS4 so different from TS3 that EA still can sell both games for their full price. So EA found a way to make pets sufficiently different from the Sims 3 Pets to still follow this policy. But weather is weather and can’t really be very different from game to game. Therefore Seasons still hasn’t been released for TS4 too because such a release would likely just finally force EA to give up on the idea about selling TS3 too. Seasons is popular though. So it still gives meaning for EA to maybe release Seasons as the very last EP for TS4 too.
You keep answering your own questions.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Seasons as well as Pets is because Seasons isn't actually finished? You know, because they're both an absolutely HUGE expansion? Also, companies don't wait to release things because they don't care. They do things in a certain order because it holds consumer interest. I also don't believe that Seasons will be the last pack.
Maybe the reason they haven't released Weather is because it's only easy if you don't care. "Oh, it's raining. Puddles and automatic watering of plants."
It's not just a copy-paste job. Why should Sims 4, using more powerful computer specs, be exactly like Sims 3 when the teams are different and the engine is different and the graphical style is different?
Seasons isn’t a massively huge expansion. Popular? Yes. Comparable to development on pets? No. Seasons is mostly special effects, which is the one thing the people making Sims 4 specialize in. If anything this pack should be a walk in the park granted they can follow through on the many statements they have made pertaining to what worlds will experience seasonal changes and what not.
After seeing how C&D was handled, I’m not overly confident that a Seasons EP will be finished, let alone any good. They already have a hurdle to get over, which is getting Seasons enabled for every world in the game. If they can’t manage that (which I’m still not convinced that they can.... too many contradictory statements about this game) then the pack will be a universal flop.
Hi
If seasons was such a walk in the park to develope why do we have to wait so long for it in each series.
I think people underestermate how easy they feel it must be to develop it in a sims game.
In all honesty how would we know how long it would take to make seasons anyway, are we developing seasons for this game.
Getting it stable without issues could also delay it.
Same as getting the rest of the pack finished.
Snow and rain alone must create issues if we do get seasons.
Look how long it took them to bring out toddlers.
And pets. And thats badly done if you ask me.
I am just going to wait and see what its like, if we even get it to begin with. No point for me to makes assumptions. I don't like to do that in general.
Like how I won't say I love or hate a pack idea before I've even seen it.
I agree with Marcel. Seasons doesn't need new stuff to look good. It needs the slavish devotion of altering almost every object so far to look appropriate in all seasons, and many, many activities specific to each season. It needs gameplay objects for each season. In Sims 3 there were new deaths. Events are very like the festivals of City Living, but only once a year.
That, all on top of the coding to make Seasons happen at the right time in your game.
The new stuff is kind of superfluous to all that.
If it's on a scale with the effort that went into Cats and Dogs, I'll be fairly happy. I'm fairly sure that the Devs want to make it amazing - it's up to EA if they let them.
Prepping a list of mods to add after Infants are placed into the game. Because real life isn't 'nice'.
They have done Seasons so many times before and not only for the main PC games. Beside that changing things to have suitable looks for different weather or even for different celebrations are done for free in several mobile games all the time. Often it is done even just for a special even that takes only 10-14 days and then is removed from the game again. So such changes in the looks are cheap and fast to make for other game companies and of course also for EA.
So all the talk about “maybe Seasons has become too hard for them to make for TS4” are just excuses constructed by simmers who still refuse to accept the truth which of course is that it isn’t the devs who decide how TS4 mainly must be developed or which packs to develop first! Instead it is EA’s top managers who have made a strategy for the packs based on marketing considerations!
So why was Seasons, University and other traditional packs postponed for years and for so long time that EA almost certainly must have decided to drop some of them completely?
We have to consider marketing to get the answer for that question! If we instead just assume that the devs make the game like the forum want then we only fool ourselves because this obviously isn’t the case at all! EA has a strategy for the development of TS4 and all the packs and the devs can’t do anything else except to just follow that strategy like they have been told to do!
So what is the strategy? I can’t guess it in all details. But for me it seems to at least contain the following:
1. TS4 must be so different from TS3 as possible to motivate simmers to buy both games.
2. TS4 must have more small packs and fewer big EPs because small packs are much cheaper to make and generally sell better.
3. The devs must avoid traditional EPs for as long time as possible and then make them new and so different from EPs for the earlier games that TS3 still will sell as well possible too.
The Sims Mobile has nothing to do with TS4 either btw because it isn’t even made on TS4’s game engine. It is a very different game where we only can play 4 sims but instead can have a huge numbers of NPCs where many of them come from other games played by other simmers. Some of the graphics from TS4 may be reused a little. But nothing else.
The Sims Mobile is also kept very different from the Sims Freeplay where we play 34 sims and in several houses and neighborhoods and not only one house like in the Sims Mobile.
So generally EA just want different Sims games to be as different from eachother as possible and has no wish to instead make them more as remakes of eachother. Therefore TS4 hasn’t got the most traditional EPs yet and likely never will. Some kind of weather may be added though. But most likely never University and maybe not a full Seasons EP either!
This is a beautifully vague statement, but regardless basically means, "Get used to packs because we're not going to stop making them."
You just said "X basically means Y, because I say so".
As you noticed, it's a very vague statement. So if you can say "it basically means that we'll be getting packs for years" it is also perfectly reasonable for people to interpret it as "we'll be making packs until it no longer makes sense, and since it stopped making sense around 5 years in every previous iteration it'll probably be the same with TS4"
The truth is, no one here knows what it actually means. Only EA and devs know. This discussion has been going on for years now and people have absolutely nothing new to contribute to it.
Y'all are just fighting about whose speculation is correct as if it's not just a mere speculation on both sides.
None of you can prove that you're right so why not just agree to disagree without all the sarcasm and "eye rolling"? You realize that your opinion is not worth more than anyone else's opinion on here? Because we all base our opinions on that one vague statement so I'd say your interpretation is as eye rolling worthy as anyone else's.
While I personally believe TS4 is going to last a little over the 5 years we've been accustomed to, I find ANY "utmost conviction against all evidence and without proof" funny. What proof are you talking about? Ah, yes. Your own interpretation of someones words.
Time to accept none of us knows what's going to happen. And you don't have to put people down for seeing things differently than you.
To get back on topic, I believe there is time when the amount of DLC for any game becomes too crippling and EA realizes it. Coming out with too many packs can kill the game, which we've seen before (TS3 and their smart recommendation to only use 3 EPs at once, anyone?). It's inevitably going to turn people off rather than continue to keep them excited. My own opinion is that TS4 will maybe last not 4 or 5 years, but 6. I can't really see EA wanting to drag it out longer, but that's just an opinion and I'm very curious to see what the future brings. Maybe there are some truly new and innovative plans for this game.
@agustd ”only EA and the devs know” you wrote. This is also what almost all in the forum seem to think. But it is exactly this “fact” that I strongly doubt.
The reason is that it is the managers in EA and not the producers who guide the devs who make such decisions. The managers likely discuss things with some of the producers though (maybe only with the executive producer but maybe also with a few other producers - we just don’t know). But even so the managers make the decisions and it is extremely unlikely that they make final decisions before they have to and they of course don’t tell the producers about decisions before they have made them.
So the producers likely only know anything about the packs that already are under development. What will happen after this hasn’t been decided. So they just guess about it like we do.
The producer said that they will make packs until it doesn’t make sense anymore. Why did he say that? My interpretation is that he likely just wanted to stop rumors and expectations about either EA stopping to make packs for TS4 or to make the same EPs as usual. He couldn’t be more specific but only able to tell that they still have more packs under development.
Still the producers likely only know about packs which already are under development or are about to start their development after having got a green light from EA. But I am quite sure that EA hasn’t decided anything more than at most a year into the future. Therefore even the producers don’t likely know more than we do but are only guessing a little in the same way as we do if we go further into the future.
So I interpretate the statement “we will continue to make packs for TS4 until it doesn’t make sense anymore” as:
1. A confirmation of the fact that there still are more packs under development.
2. A guess about the future where they likely will continue to make packs until EA’s managers tell them to stop either because the packs don’t sell anymore or because TS5 is about to be released soon.
Will TS4 then continue after 2019? We can only guess. My guess is 80% that it won’t because nothing indicate it. But maybe still 20% that TS4 will continue anyway because its packs are so cheap to make or because the release of TS5 for some reason has to be postponed a little longer.
I feel that with all of the packs and the schedule for EP releases being seemingly down to one per year that TS4 will last longer. With the exception of My First Pet Stuff controversy, it appears that their packs have been selling well. The game has been ported to consoles and they're working quickly to get all the DLC out on it as well. Granted, I know they're partnering with BlindSquirrel on this, but to me it still shows there's a great, continued interest in TS4 both on PC and console.
I am not a developer, but I know people who work with code, development etc. While I don't think season special effects would take very long to make, I do think that making sure all of the interactions work well together and dealing with potential bugs would be an issue--particularly indoor versus outdoor events/effects. The loading screens we have versus complete open world I imagine would make things easier but I'm not sure how that fully works? From what I can tell, seasons has been more so of a "global" coding in terms of specific effects and interactions for the whole world(s).
I don't think anyone is right or wrong, and as such I don't think there needs to be constant defending or rebuttals of others' opinions. At the end of the day, we don't work for EA. We don't truly know what is or isn't happening. I'd love for TS4 to run longer, as I feel some of their ideas, especially Game Packs, have been refreshing.
That's just my two cents.
"Not All Who Wander Are Lost"-Tolkien
Origin ID: simaddict1990
Part of me just rolls my eyes when I see people saying, with the utmost conviction and against all evidence and without proof, "Sims 5 will soon be announced". The only 'evidence' is that in the past, Sims games lasted about 4/5 years. However, Gurus have repeatedly said that they will keep making Sims 4 packs until it doesn't make sense. This is a beautifully vague statement, but regardless basically means, "Get used to packs because we're not going to stop making them." And why would they want to? Their jobs depend on it.
We got an official fake Sims 5 trailer, which is actually a pretty good sign that nothing's coming.
The design, the engine, the style... it's all a 'built for the long haul' kind of thing. Even the way SIms 4 is mod-friendly.
EA is not going to bother with looking for new players with Sims 5 while Sims 3 and 4 are still selling. They're getting new players with ports. No new designs for items or packs, just porting teams to get Sims 4 out to anybody who doesn't have a PC, which is a much larger audience than sitting down and making a new Sims 5. Ports and packs are where the money's at.
In fact all this porting is the single biggest reason we won't get a Sims 5.
Bolded statement, you do realize they have said that four times don't you? When BV came out for TS2 everyone was saying it meant 'goodbye' last EP etc. They came out and said they would keep making packs until it no longer made any sense. TS3 had been worked on since 2006, it no longer made sense once they finished it and though it was delayed awhile to market it more, they made FT and AL while they marketed TS3 and finsihed up. Once it was done and the deadline rolled around it no longer made any sense to continue with TS2. They also said it for TS3, while TS4 Olympus was being produced since 2010. Once they decided it was time to unveil the new improved, reworked online game to be single player it no longer made any sense to carry on with TS3. It's something they have said since The Sims was ending back in 2003 while they working on TS2, in 2001. ETA: They bought their domain names all the way through until The Sims 7, so I don't think they don't have any plans. They bought those domain names (TS4-TS7) when they bought The Sims 4 domain name...
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
They announced that "Sims 4 isn't going anywhere" and that we just started the "second wave of Sims 4 packs" with Cats & Dogs so judging by that, Sims 4 has at least 2 more years to stick around.
Makes you wonder what they will bring. I mean that statement about pets being the last of the biggest packs.
They mean big as in the pack everyone wants to buy and on a technical stand point.
Hello
I do know what they meant!
University and seasons must be the smallest and least wanted then?
To be honest I would have guessed at seasons being one of the biggest and most requested expansion packs.
So reading that statement made me wonder
Pets was always the biggest EP request. It’s true seasons is a big request but it’s harder to do a pet ep where everyone wants to add and personalize there cat and dog rather then to add 4 seasons and some activities.
I think you might be underestimating adding weather to the game there a tiny bit And Pets and Seasons are equal where it comes to being the most requested.
We may have just started on the 'second wave' now, but who's to say there won't be a third wave?
Without weather the game is bland. I’ve stopped playing sims, well because 20 other games came out and I have to play them. But the fact is everyday is sunny and boring. I personally think seasons is more needed in the sims 4 then any ep right now because weather changes so much. It honestly should of been the first ep because you can do so much with weather and seasons.
I agree about the game being bland without weather, this really should be a base game feature in future base games even if its just rain and the rest added in an ep. The sims 2 had rain in the base game originally before that fire. Weather is part of everyday life and as this is a life simulation it should be base game same goes for cars.
I remember hearing somewhere on here that the sims 4 isn't going to follow the same timeline as past games. They don't have a set time yet that its going to last and it might go on for longer than past games.
We don't know how well the sims 4 is doing compared to the sims 3. We can speculate but we don't know.
I think the game will last a little longer but only because the game takes forever to bring content out with any real meaning. I don't think that it will still be around in say five years.
But I'm totally sure that sells for this game are the worst that The Sims never knew.
Maybe. But it isn’t important because it is most likely still one of EA’s best selling games. Otherwise EA wouldn’t have increased the number of yearly packs but decreased this number instead. And EA also wouldn’t have released TS4 for consoles too. Signs are that TS4 also sells extremely well.
Erpe, you made a great point about them putting it on console. Not sure why people keep comparing S4 to past games when they have come out and openly said that it won't be. From what Graham said when addressing this, I got the feeling that S4 will be around for at least a few more years. I think what simmers have to remember is that S 1,2,3 were disc versions that were harder to patch and S4 is sold/downloaded online and patched online compared to some of it being patched on the next disc like with S3. Being online probably adds more time to S4. Personally, I would be mad if S4 came to a close and I'm an ultimate open world fan.
We don't have 1/10 or less of the stuff we had in S3. To be honest, if S4 were to end with the limited(compared to S3)content we have, even if they add 3more EPs and loads of other packs, I would be very worried about going on to S5, because I would feel that they might close that one down early too with sparse content and waste my money. I don't want to buy a new Sims game every little bit and not have it completely fleshed out like they are making buyers do with Word ect. now.
I remember hearing somewhere on here that the sims 4 isn't going to follow the same timeline as past games. They don't have a set time yet that its going to last and it might go on for longer than past games.
We don't know how well the sims 4 is doing compared to the sims 3. We can speculate but we don't know.
I think the game will last a little longer but only because the game takes forever to bring content out with any real meaning. I don't think that it will still be around in say five years.
But I'm totally sure that sells for this game are the worst that The Sims never knew.
Maybe. But it isn’t important because it is most likely still one of EA’s best selling games. Otherwise EA wouldn’t have increased the number of yearly packs but decreased this number instead. And EA also wouldn’t have released TS4 for consoles too. Signs are that TS4 also sells extremely well.
Erpe, you made a great point about them putting it on console. Not sure why people keep comparing S4 to past games when they have come out and openly said that it won't be. From what Graham said when addressing this, I got the feeling that S4 will be around for at least a few more years. I think what simmers have to remember is that S 1,2,3 were disc versions that were harder to patch and S4 is sold/downloaded online and patched online compared to some of it being patched on the next disc like with S3. Being online probably adds more time to S4. Personally, I would be mad if S4 came to a close and I'm an ultimate open world fan.
We don't have 1/10 or less of the stuff we had in S3. To be honest, if S4 were to end with the limited(compared to S3)content we have, even if they add 3more EPs and loads of other packs, I would be very worried about going on to S5, because I would feel that they might close that one down early too with sparse content and waste my money. I don't want to buy a new Sims game every little bit and not have it completely fleshed out like they are making buyers do with Word ect. now.
Though I’m sure you’re right about the online thing (it being easier to adjust and fix stuff), I don’t think Sims 3 was ever patched on a next disk? What if you didn’t buy that disk? Patches for Sims 3 happened online as well, through Origin (and before that... something else, don’t remember but we had to install Origin at one point).
@davina1221 I just don’t think that EA sees it in that way. But let us try to compare.
TS3 got:
2009: basegame and 1 EP
2019: 2 SPs and 2 EPs
2011: 2 SPs and 2 EPs
2012: 3 SPs and 3 EPs
2013: 2 SPs and 3 EPs
Until now TS4 has got:
2014: basegame
2015: 4 SPs, 2 GPs and 2 EPs
2016: 5 SPs, 1 GP and 1 EP
2017: 3 SPs, 1 GP and 1 EP
2018: 2 SPs, 1 GP
If we assume that TS4 still will get maybe one more GP, a couple of SPs and an EP in 2018 then TS4 will have packs for about the same total price as TS3 got. Maybe TS4 will even get one or two more packs too in the first months of 2019 before TS5 (IMO) likely will be released in the middle or in the second half of 2019. So TS4 will then have at least packs for as much money as TS3 got and maybe even more.
Therefore I still don’t see any reason why EA shouldn’t release TS5 in the second half of 2019. But we are moving in circles in this discussion. So let us just wait and see if EA doesn’t announce TS5 to be released next year within the next few months
I'm starting to wonder if EA would try something completely different this time around and release a Sims 5 that is very different from Sims 4, but continue to support Sims 4, thus having two varient Sims games going at once.
It's quite common for Sims players to continue to enjoy a previous iteration while still supporting the most recent, and it's no secret that Sims 4 has probably the biggest divide of Simmers from any other iteration. There is a constant cry for changes and an ongoing criticism for the development choices, and many, many players who supported old versions are unsatisfied with this new direction. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of Simmers (and some old) love Sims 4 and continue to fully support its development. There could very well be a market for two games.
Also, in the past, EA would release offshoot games to fill in any niche demands, but what if they just decided to go ahead and do a completely new and innovative Sims 5 to snag the players who are unhappy with 4? Then, by continuing to release content for Sims 4, they could possibly "get the best [money] of both worlds" without risking a loss of customers. Then, if Sims 4 does drop off in sales, they could simply stop supporting it. But there could be a very good chance that a lot of players would support both games if they varied enough.
I think it would be a brilliant maneuver, but would they actually do it? I don't know....maybe?
I'm starting to wonder if EA would try something completely different this time around and release a Sims 5 that is very different from Sims 4, but continue to support Sims 4, thus having two varient Sims games going at once.
It's quite common for Sims players to continue to enjoy a previous iteration while still supporting the most recent, and it's no secret that Sims 4 has probably the biggest divide of Simmers from any other iteration. There is a constant cry for changes and an ongoing criticism for the development choices, and many, many players who supported old versions are unsatisfied with this new direction. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of Simmers (and some old) love Sims 4 and continue to fully support its development. There could very well be a market for two games.
Also, in the past, EA would release offshoot games to fill in any niche demands, but what if they just decided to go ahead and do a completely new and innovative Sims 5 to snag the players who are unhappy with 4? Then, by continuing to release content for Sims 4, they could possibly "get the best [money] of both worlds" without risking a loss of customers. Then, if Sims 4 does drop off in sales, they could simply stop supporting it. But there could be a very good chance that a lot of players would support both games if they varied enough.
I think it would be a brilliant maneuver, but would they actually do it? I don't know....maybe?
It would be amazing, but I don't think they'll risk that.
I'm starting to wonder if EA would try something completely different this time around and release a Sims 5 that is very different from Sims 4, but continue to support Sims 4, thus having two varient Sims games going at once.
It's quite common for Sims players to continue to enjoy a previous iteration while still supporting the most recent, and it's no secret that Sims 4 has probably the biggest divide of Simmers from any other iteration. There is a constant cry for changes and an ongoing criticism for the development choices, and many, many players who supported old versions are unsatisfied with this new direction. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of Simmers (and some old) love Sims 4 and continue to fully support its development. There could very well be a market for two games.
Also, in the past, EA would release offshoot games to fill in any niche demands, but what if they just decided to go ahead and do a completely new and innovative Sims 5 to snag the players who are unhappy with 4? Then, by continuing to release content for Sims 4, they could possibly "get the best [money] of both worlds" without risking a loss of customers. Then, if Sims 4 does drop off in sales, they could simply stop supporting it. But there could be a very good chance that a lot of players would support both games if they varied enough.
I think it would be a brilliant maneuver, but would they actually do it? I don't know....maybe?
I love this line of thinking. Hope you’re on to something there
I'm starting to wonder if EA would try something completely different this time around and release a Sims 5 that is very different from Sims 4, but continue to support Sims 4, thus having two varient Sims games going at once.
It's quite common for Sims players to continue to enjoy a previous iteration while still supporting the most recent, and it's no secret that Sims 4 has probably the biggest divide of Simmers from any other iteration. There is a constant cry for changes and an ongoing criticism for the development choices, and many, many players who supported old versions are unsatisfied with this new direction. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of Simmers (and some old) love Sims 4 and continue to fully support its development. There could very well be a market for two games.
Also, in the past, EA would release offshoot games to fill in any niche demands, but what if they just decided to go ahead and do a completely new and innovative Sims 5 to snag the players who are unhappy with 4? Then, by continuing to release content for Sims 4, they could possibly "get the best [money] of both worlds" without risking a loss of customers. Then, if Sims 4 does drop off in sales, they could simply stop supporting it. But there could be a very good chance that a lot of players would support both games if they varied enough.
I think it would be a brilliant maneuver, but would they actually do it? I don't know....maybe?
I'm starting to wonder if EA would try something completely different this time around and release a Sims 5 that is very different from Sims 4, but continue to support Sims 4, thus having two varient Sims games going at once.
It's quite common for Sims players to continue to enjoy a previous iteration while still supporting the most recent, and it's no secret that Sims 4 has probably the biggest divide of Simmers from any other iteration. There is a constant cry for changes and an ongoing criticism for the development choices, and many, many players who supported old versions are unsatisfied with this new direction. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of Simmers (and some old) love Sims 4 and continue to fully support its development. There could very well be a market for two games.
Also, in the past, EA would release offshoot games to fill in any niche demands, but what if they just decided to go ahead and do a completely new and innovative Sims 5 to snag the players who are unhappy with 4? Then, by continuing to release content for Sims 4, they could possibly "get the best [money] of both worlds" without risking a loss of customers. Then, if Sims 4 does drop off in sales, they could simply stop supporting it. But there could be a very good chance that a lot of players would support both games if they varied enough.
I think it would be a brilliant maneuver, but would they actually do it? I don't know....maybe?
I'd be disappointed if the game ends in the next year or 2. But that would be my luck, I chose the Sims 4 to get into the game, hoping it would be better than the Sims 3 and prior, content wise prioritizing different things first so I can enjoy it longer with in it's lifespan... but If I get a Sorcerers GP and a Werewolves GP, and then they pull the Plug on the Sims 4, I'm going to be very upset, The Sims 4 will be my first and Last official Sims game, I won't continue with the series.
Comments
Seasons isn’t a massively huge expansion. Popular? Yes. Comparable to development on pets? No. Seasons is mostly special effects, which is the one thing the people making Sims 4 specialize in. If anything this pack should be a walk in the park granted they can follow through on the many statements they have made pertaining to what worlds will experience seasonal changes and what not.
After seeing how C&D was handled, I’m not overly confident that a Seasons EP will be finished, let alone any good. They already have a hurdle to get over, which is getting Seasons enabled for every world in the game. If they can’t manage that (which I’m still not convinced that they can.... too many contradictory statements about this game) then the pack will be a universal flop.
EA decided to close the Salt Lake Studio down because it wasn’t needed for TS4 and just recently EA closed the Visceral Studio down too instead of just letting in make TS4 packs too and in spite of the fact that Visceral even already was located in the same building as the TS4 teams.
EA devs are very skilled and they can easily make everything for the game as EA’s management want them to. But they can’t do it when EA just doesn’t want it. Therefore they only havve made small packs for TS4 and EPs with reduced content compared to the EPs for the earlier games. The reason clearly is that EA doesn’t think that it will be profitable to release packs for more than a certain amount each year because then too many simmers will likely stop buying everything and the packs will therefore just steal customers from eachother. Also EA doesn’t want to make the packs bigger because then the packs will just become more expensive to make and without sufficiently effect on the sales numbers to make it worth it.
But yes I am still convinced that EA soon will announce TS5 too because all the reasons why EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years still seem to be valuable. Even the fact that TS1 simmers became so angry when TS2 was released that the sales numbers for TS2 only became half as high as the sales numbers for TS1 never scared EA from also releasing TS3 and TS4 after 5 years and I am quite sure that the Sims 4 simmers haven’t scared EA from also releasing TS5 either!
(they actually made Sims 3 very Mods unfriendly by the way, it’s definitely not easier to create CC for the game than it was for Sims 2 and is for Sims 4; the latter came with a Mods folder even and for Sims 2 all you have to do is create a folder and name it Downloads)
We got an official fake Sims 5 trailer, which is actually a pretty good sign that nothing's coming.
The design, the engine, the style... it's all a 'built for the long haul' kind of thing. Even the way SIms 4 is mod-friendly.
EA is not going to bother with looking for new players with Sims 5 while Sims 3 and 4 are still selling. They're getting new players with ports. No new designs for items or packs, just porting teams to get Sims 4 out to anybody who doesn't have a PC, which is a much larger audience than sitting down and making a new Sims 5. Ports and packs are where the money's at.
In fact all this porting is the single biggest reason we won't get a Sims 5.
Has EA been bought by somebody else who have different ideas?
Has EA suddenly got a new board of directors who aren’t business men but just want to develop games for fun?
Has our societies suddenly changed such that we now want to just entertain eachother instead of earning money from our jobs and careers?
Or whatever?
So somebody made a false Sims 5 trailer for fun like so many others have made fake trailers about other things in future Sims games. Why does this suddenly prove that the trailer was made by EA to tell us that EA won’t be making TS5 but instead just packs for TS4 forever?
Just still not so mod-friendly as TS3. But TS3 got a successor anyway. So how does this prove the opposite thing for TS4?
EA hired Blind Squirrel Entertainment to make a port of TS4 and its packs as fast as possible to consoles too because it was so cheap that it made EA change its earlier decision about not making a Sims game for consoles anymore. But the speed this is done with shows how important it is to get it over with before TS5 is released even though it will hurt the sales numbers to release packs this fast. There isn’t much money in this port though because almost all dedicated simmers already own the PC version and therefore are unlikely to buy the console version of the exact same game too. So the console version is only targeted at new young simmers who play their games on consoles and don’t have any gaming computer.
So things haven’t changed. All the money is mainly from selling packs for the PC version which is about to be too old to be attractive for new young simmers in the main target group. Sales numbers for the packs are therefore gong down and the basegame doesn’t really sell at all anymore. To repair this EA needs to release a new basegame and make it so different from TS3 and TS4 that new simmers still will be motivated to sometimes buy TS3 and TS4 too.
But the dream about packs-forever has dominated simmers since TS1 where the fans became so angry at EA for releasing TS2 that more than half of the Sims 1 fans never bought TS2! The reason of course was that they loved TS1 and had invested so much money in it that they just refused to switch to a new game and start over. This hasn’t changed at all except that simmers have learned that they can’t force EA to again make packs for an earlier Sims game just by refusing to buy the new one. But the dream about the current game just getting packs forever is still there just like it was for all the earlier big Sims games
These past feature are all part of a sims game.
People want to see them again, hopefully better than the time before.
The sims 4 would be a flop without past favorites.
They do add new things into each pack.
Seasons is such a popular pack. Its unlikely it would ever been in the base game like pets wouldn't.
It would be nice if it did make it into a base game tho
Hi
I agree with most of your post.
There is loads of CC/Mods for both TS3\TS4
The sims resource isn't the best place for it much like modthesims Both are well known. Other websites/blogs you will find more.
There is so much out there for now for both series.
Create sims body and face shape are so much better for me in this game.
Hi
If seasons was such a walk in the park to develope why do we have to wait so long for it in each series.
I think people underestermate how easy they feel it must be to develop it in a sims game.
In all honesty how would we know how long it would take to make seasons anyway, are we developing seasons for this game.
Getting it stable without issues could also delay it.
Same as getting the rest of the pack finished.
Snow and rain alone must create issues if we do get seasons.
Look how long it took them to bring out toddlers.
And pets. And thats badly done if you ask me.
I am just going to wait and see what its like, if we even get it to begin with. No point for me to makes assumptions. I don't like to do that in general.
Like how I won't say I love or hate a pack idea before I've even seen it.
That, all on top of the coding to make Seasons happen at the right time in your game.
The new stuff is kind of superfluous to all that.
If it's on a scale with the effort that went into Cats and Dogs, I'll be fairly happy. I'm fairly sure that the Devs want to make it amazing - it's up to EA if they let them.
So all the talk about “maybe Seasons has become too hard for them to make for TS4” are just excuses constructed by simmers who still refuse to accept the truth which of course is that it isn’t the devs who decide how TS4 mainly must be developed or which packs to develop first! Instead it is EA’s top managers who have made a strategy for the packs based on marketing considerations!
So why was Seasons, University and other traditional packs postponed for years and for so long time that EA almost certainly must have decided to drop some of them completely?
We have to consider marketing to get the answer for that question! If we instead just assume that the devs make the game like the forum want then we only fool ourselves because this obviously isn’t the case at all! EA has a strategy for the development of TS4 and all the packs and the devs can’t do anything else except to just follow that strategy like they have been told to do!
So what is the strategy? I can’t guess it in all details. But for me it seems to at least contain the following:
1. TS4 must be so different from TS3 as possible to motivate simmers to buy both games.
2. TS4 must have more small packs and fewer big EPs because small packs are much cheaper to make and generally sell better.
3. The devs must avoid traditional EPs for as long time as possible and then make them new and so different from EPs for the earlier games that TS3 still will sell as well possible too.
The Sims Mobile has nothing to do with TS4 either btw because it isn’t even made on TS4’s game engine. It is a very different game where we only can play 4 sims but instead can have a huge numbers of NPCs where many of them come from other games played by other simmers. Some of the graphics from TS4 may be reused a little. But nothing else.
The Sims Mobile is also kept very different from the Sims Freeplay where we play 34 sims and in several houses and neighborhoods and not only one house like in the Sims Mobile.
So generally EA just want different Sims games to be as different from eachother as possible and has no wish to instead make them more as remakes of eachother. Therefore TS4 hasn’t got the most traditional EPs yet and likely never will. Some kind of weather may be added though. But most likely never University and maybe not a full Seasons EP either!
You just said "X basically means Y, because I say so".
As you noticed, it's a very vague statement. So if you can say "it basically means that we'll be getting packs for years" it is also perfectly reasonable for people to interpret it as "we'll be making packs until it no longer makes sense, and since it stopped making sense around 5 years in every previous iteration it'll probably be the same with TS4"
The truth is, no one here knows what it actually means. Only EA and devs know. This discussion has been going on for years now and people have absolutely nothing new to contribute to it.
Y'all are just fighting about whose speculation is correct as if it's not just a mere speculation on both sides.
None of you can prove that you're right so why not just agree to disagree without all the sarcasm and "eye rolling"? You realize that your opinion is not worth more than anyone else's opinion on here? Because we all base our opinions on that one vague statement so I'd say your interpretation is as eye rolling worthy as anyone else's.
While I personally believe TS4 is going to last a little over the 5 years we've been accustomed to, I find ANY "utmost conviction against all evidence and without proof" funny. What proof are you talking about? Ah, yes. Your own interpretation of someones words.
Time to accept none of us knows what's going to happen. And you don't have to put people down for seeing things differently than you.
To get back on topic, I believe there is time when the amount of DLC for any game becomes too crippling and EA realizes it. Coming out with too many packs can kill the game, which we've seen before (TS3 and their smart recommendation to only use 3 EPs at once, anyone?). It's inevitably going to turn people off rather than continue to keep them excited. My own opinion is that TS4 will maybe last not 4 or 5 years, but 6. I can't really see EA wanting to drag it out longer, but that's just an opinion and I'm very curious to see what the future brings. Maybe there are some truly new and innovative plans for this game.
The reason is that it is the managers in EA and not the producers who guide the devs who make such decisions. The managers likely discuss things with some of the producers though (maybe only with the executive producer but maybe also with a few other producers - we just don’t know). But even so the managers make the decisions and it is extremely unlikely that they make final decisions before they have to and they of course don’t tell the producers about decisions before they have made them.
So the producers likely only know anything about the packs that already are under development. What will happen after this hasn’t been decided. So they just guess about it like we do.
The producer said that they will make packs until it doesn’t make sense anymore. Why did he say that? My interpretation is that he likely just wanted to stop rumors and expectations about either EA stopping to make packs for TS4 or to make the same EPs as usual. He couldn’t be more specific but only able to tell that they still have more packs under development.
Still the producers likely only know about packs which already are under development or are about to start their development after having got a green light from EA. But I am quite sure that EA hasn’t decided anything more than at most a year into the future. Therefore even the producers don’t likely know more than we do but are only guessing a little in the same way as we do if we go further into the future.
So I interpretate the statement “we will continue to make packs for TS4 until it doesn’t make sense anymore” as:
1. A confirmation of the fact that there still are more packs under development.
2. A guess about the future where they likely will continue to make packs until EA’s managers tell them to stop either because the packs don’t sell anymore or because TS5 is about to be released soon.
Will TS4 then continue after 2019? We can only guess. My guess is 80% that it won’t because nothing indicate it. But maybe still 20% that TS4 will continue anyway because its packs are so cheap to make or because the release of TS5 for some reason has to be postponed a little longer.
I am not a developer, but I know people who work with code, development etc. While I don't think season special effects would take very long to make, I do think that making sure all of the interactions work well together and dealing with potential bugs would be an issue--particularly indoor versus outdoor events/effects. The loading screens we have versus complete open world I imagine would make things easier but I'm not sure how that fully works? From what I can tell, seasons has been more so of a "global" coding in terms of specific effects and interactions for the whole world(s).
I don't think anyone is right or wrong, and as such I don't think there needs to be constant defending or rebuttals of others' opinions. At the end of the day, we don't work for EA. We don't truly know what is or isn't happening. I'd love for TS4 to run longer, as I feel some of their ideas, especially Game Packs, have been refreshing.
That's just my two cents.
Origin ID: simaddict1990
Bolded statement, you do realize they have said that four times don't you? When BV came out for TS2 everyone was saying it meant 'goodbye' last EP etc. They came out and said they would keep making packs until it no longer made any sense. TS3 had been worked on since 2006, it no longer made sense once they finished it and though it was delayed awhile to market it more, they made FT and AL while they marketed TS3 and finsihed up. Once it was done and the deadline rolled around it no longer made any sense to continue with TS2. They also said it for TS3, while TS4 Olympus was being produced since 2010. Once they decided it was time to unveil the new improved, reworked online game to be single player it no longer made any sense to carry on with TS3. It's something they have said since The Sims was ending back in 2003 while they working on TS2, in 2001. ETA: They bought their domain names all the way through until The Sims 7, so I don't think they don't have any plans. They bought those domain names (TS4-TS7) when they bought The Sims 4 domain name...
I agree about the game being bland without weather, this really should be a base game feature in future base games even if its just rain and the rest added in an ep. The sims 2 had rain in the base game originally before that fire. Weather is part of everyday life and as this is a life simulation it should be base game same goes for cars.
Erpe, you made a great point about them putting it on console. Not sure why people keep comparing S4 to past games when they have come out and openly said that it won't be. From what Graham said when addressing this, I got the feeling that S4 will be around for at least a few more years. I think what simmers have to remember is that S 1,2,3 were disc versions that were harder to patch and S4 is sold/downloaded online and patched online compared to some of it being patched on the next disc like with S3. Being online probably adds more time to S4. Personally, I would be mad if S4 came to a close and I'm an ultimate open world fan.
We don't have 1/10 or less of the stuff we had in S3. To be honest, if S4 were to end with the limited(compared to S3)content we have, even if they add 3more EPs and loads of other packs, I would be very worried about going on to S5, because I would feel that they might close that one down early too with sparse content and waste my money. I don't want to buy a new Sims game every little bit and not have it completely fleshed out like they are making buyers do with Word ect. now.
TS3 got:
2009: basegame and 1 EP
2019: 2 SPs and 2 EPs
2011: 2 SPs and 2 EPs
2012: 3 SPs and 3 EPs
2013: 2 SPs and 3 EPs
Until now TS4 has got:
2014: basegame
2015: 4 SPs, 2 GPs and 2 EPs
2016: 5 SPs, 1 GP and 1 EP
2017: 3 SPs, 1 GP and 1 EP
2018: 2 SPs, 1 GP
If we assume that TS4 still will get maybe one more GP, a couple of SPs and an EP in 2018 then TS4 will have packs for about the same total price as TS3 got. Maybe TS4 will even get one or two more packs too in the first months of 2019 before TS5 (IMO) likely will be released in the middle or in the second half of 2019. So TS4 will then have at least packs for as much money as TS3 got and maybe even more.
Therefore I still don’t see any reason why EA shouldn’t release TS5 in the second half of 2019. But we are moving in circles in this discussion. So let us just wait and see if EA doesn’t announce TS5 to be released next year within the next few months
It's quite common for Sims players to continue to enjoy a previous iteration while still supporting the most recent, and it's no secret that Sims 4 has probably the biggest divide of Simmers from any other iteration. There is a constant cry for changes and an ongoing criticism for the development choices, and many, many players who supported old versions are unsatisfied with this new direction. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of Simmers (and some old) love Sims 4 and continue to fully support its development. There could very well be a market for two games.
Also, in the past, EA would release offshoot games to fill in any niche demands, but what if they just decided to go ahead and do a completely new and innovative Sims 5 to snag the players who are unhappy with 4? Then, by continuing to release content for Sims 4, they could possibly "get the best [money] of both worlds" without risking a loss of customers. Then, if Sims 4 does drop off in sales, they could simply stop supporting it. But there could be a very good chance that a lot of players would support both games if they varied enough.
I think it would be a brilliant maneuver, but would they actually do it? I don't know....maybe?
It would be amazing, but I don't think they'll risk that.
This would be my dream situation
Edit: typo
This idea has me so excited. Fingers crossed!
I'd be disappointed if the game ends in the next year or 2. But that would be my luck, I chose the Sims 4 to get into the game, hoping it would be better than the Sims 3 and prior, content wise prioritizing different things first so I can enjoy it longer with in it's lifespan... but If I get a Sorcerers GP and a Werewolves GP, and then they pull the Plug on the Sims 4, I'm going to be very upset, The Sims 4 will be my first and Last official Sims game, I won't continue with the series.
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