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What we like to see in The sims 5 [LONG THREAD+PICS!]
Just want to point out first: Please no negativity in this thread. It is just to share our lovely ideas and dreams! You can never dream too big anyway 
[LONG THREAD + PICS] I will type further on other days, cause I can't manage to type it all and I will probably get new ideas
I got some ideas that I would seriously love to see in The sims 5. I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I am getting pretty excited about new chances to create a great game with an amazing base. I always loved the jump from TS1 to the TS2 and I would very much like to get this feeling back the first time I will open The sims 5. Let's therefore start with the:
-soudtrack!-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGGLj5Go4QE&list=PLZzKhgUfPukAqvON7ORuk1RvObqt2uayB
I think it would be amazing if they brought back this song first when you open the game. Maybe slightly with some new sounds, but to be honest.. I would prefer the original song. I think it's the best song in the history of The sims!
-Background stories-
One thing I loved was the all the exciting new things to see and read whenever you came to the neighbourhood. It shouldn't be boring and app-like. It should feel like already a thousand possibilities when you open the game. Not confusing, but it should be like you are entering in a real world, with characteristic sims and their (background)stories. Worlds need to stay connected like how we have now in TS4. That was a good change. And of course the ability to choose from different type of worlds with different sims and background stories in it. Also some mysteries would be nice to figure out when you choose to play, interact and ask townies about it. Could be love affairs that you will discover if you befriend certain sims or any kind of dramatic stories. It felt very lazy to me that they took this all out in TS4. It made a pretty bad start when you opened the game and saw 0 life a.ka stories in the world.
-Neighbourhood houses-
I always missed to see these type of houses in the game:
It makes the neighbourhood more alive instead of living separate on a lot. I also think we should get the opportunity on EVERY lot to rent or either buy it. It should not be restricted to certain buildings or worlds only.
When you live in these row houses, you will also hear more sounds from your neighbours as in apartments in TS4. It would be cool to have many different type of houses like this. You have the cheaper looking ones in a row, but also the fancy or modern looking ones. The world will have districts and similar style houses in that area. It will make it easy for us to decide where to live and what type of houses to build there. Of course we should be able to demolish everything and build whatever we want there. Maybe we could give traits to each district so only certain type of sims (which will be NPC's. We can decide for ourselves with our own Sims) would come and live there. No rich snobby sim wants to get a poor, slobby and asocial neighbour right? It will also improve storytelling more and NPC's won't just randomly move in if they can't afford the neighbourhood or have certain personality traits.
Households should fit in their homes too. Bedrooms will be counted and random NPC household would never move in a house that has too less bedrooms. It's a pretty annoying thing we have now in our game.
Another type of row houses I would like to see are these:
Maybe for a more fancy neighbourhood?
I think there should be empty buildings or stores under these type of houses available:
So sims can buy or rent the space and open a business. This way, sims can live above their own store or just go to work right across the street. This idea makes me so excited! Endless possibilities is what i need to feel! Some spaces will already be rented by sims in the neighbourhood or just commutiy lots such as cafes, small newspaper/magazine/drug store stores, 24/7 markets where sims can get late night snacks etc. I will go further into this in 'neighbourhoods community lots'.
households should be able to rent more than just 1 place. Not just for multiple businesses, but also as a second or third home. Maybe for their kids or as a holiday/summer house in another world/district.
-Neighbourhood activity-
An open world would be amazing to get back. I might be able to accept open districts. Not like what we have now, but where ALL the lots in the district are open, so we can at least visit the cafe on the corner of the street or visit a neighbours house. The houses don't have to be actively loaded inside, but at least sims and neighbours should come out sometimes to work in their garden/balcony, clean out the trash, check the mail, if they have kids, they should play in their yard. We need a more vibrant neighbourhood. That has always been killing me from the beginning.
When the weather is nice, sims would play or work outside more, or maybe even just sit on their porch with a drink or magazine/newspaper.
Sims will go more outside and enjoy their garden more when the weather is good. Sims with a nosy trait will always come and visit you when you arrived new in your neighbourhood. As well as knock on your door whenever there is a fight or a party going on.
You should be able to see sims go off to their job/school and do their daily tasks which should also make sense.
Cars should be in the game from the base game and in neighbourhoods like these with houses in a row, there should be parking spots all over the district in front of the houses as shown in the pictures. Sims will park at the nearest open parking spot near the lot they are heading to.
In general, per district, all the houses should have sims go in and out, community lots should be open to visit without a loading screen. Sims will visit these lots and be active on them without you being there. The neighbourhood will be alive! Sims will be walking/biking/jogging/driving all around the neighbourhood just as what we have now in TS4.
A district would contain min. 10 lots. Houses in a row count as 1 lot just as apartments do now even when they have 4 apartments in them. There is no loading screen within the district. It doesn't matter what type of lot you visit. We will need plenty of empty lots too as well as empty under house spaces to rent as a store/office etc.
-Neighbourhood community lots-
Talking about offices. How long have we been asking for the career lawyer? Imagine you could rent an office space and just practise your hobby/open job and get money out of that. As in now, when we have the painting, writing, gardening, social media career. We could have more like that and just rent a space if you need a place of your own, set it up how you like and work from there. It is of course not needed, but some jobs require that extra space that you might not have at home. Think about an art studio or you can also do it for other reasons; to escape the kids, your spouse or whatever I see a lot of creative ideas coming with this one. You can rent any space and do whatever you desire with it job-wise. With this idea, we will need a lot of open jobs to vary different type of office/studio spaces and not just stores/restaurants/cafe of bakeries. I will go into this subject more on the 'jobs and careers'.
The type of lots I would love to see in a district are those easy lots where sims can just blow off some steam, pick up a thing or two, meet with their friends or just hang and do some time. Such things as a coffeebar to just simply grab a coffee in the morning before going off to work. Without the loading screens, you are more likely to do this and your stories will expand itself by all these possibilities. A local bar, book store (sims can come and do their homework here as well), playground for kids, stores (we need shopping back! Also clothing shopping), drugstore that also sells magazines/newspaper, a 24/7 market that stays open all day and night for sims to buy some crappy late night snacks at, regular market for the groceries, a garage for when the car broke down. And the rest can be filled with any type of store you like. With 10 lots this should be doable. If the houses in a row contain out of 5 houses and let's say 3 have stores under them: 2 can be filled already with some on these lists. Like this we just spend 1 lot out of 10. If the sims 3 could manage to load like a 100 lots at the same time, this should work too. And houses won't be loaded on the inside unless you knock the door and the sims are home and let you in. Without the houses being fully loaded, it should be easier.
Not all stores or houses have to be in a row ofcourse, just some parts of a district. Stores, community lots or office spaces could also just be a seperate lot. You can build the town however you like anyway and just choose the lot type when you build.
Ok! that's it for today. Share some of you ideas if you like. Don't forget to incl. pictures and detailed explanation. Let's hope for a great Sims 5 game!
[LONG THREAD + PICS] I will type further on other days, cause I can't manage to type it all and I will probably get new ideas
I got some ideas that I would seriously love to see in The sims 5. I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I am getting pretty excited about new chances to create a great game with an amazing base. I always loved the jump from TS1 to the TS2 and I would very much like to get this feeling back the first time I will open The sims 5. Let's therefore start with the:
-soudtrack!-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGGLj5Go4QE&list=PLZzKhgUfPukAqvON7ORuk1RvObqt2uayBI think it would be amazing if they brought back this song first when you open the game. Maybe slightly with some new sounds, but to be honest.. I would prefer the original song. I think it's the best song in the history of The sims!
-Background stories-
One thing I loved was the all the exciting new things to see and read whenever you came to the neighbourhood. It shouldn't be boring and app-like. It should feel like already a thousand possibilities when you open the game. Not confusing, but it should be like you are entering in a real world, with characteristic sims and their (background)stories. Worlds need to stay connected like how we have now in TS4. That was a good change. And of course the ability to choose from different type of worlds with different sims and background stories in it. Also some mysteries would be nice to figure out when you choose to play, interact and ask townies about it. Could be love affairs that you will discover if you befriend certain sims or any kind of dramatic stories. It felt very lazy to me that they took this all out in TS4. It made a pretty bad start when you opened the game and saw 0 life a.ka stories in the world.
-Neighbourhood houses-
I always missed to see these type of houses in the game:
It makes the neighbourhood more alive instead of living separate on a lot. I also think we should get the opportunity on EVERY lot to rent or either buy it. It should not be restricted to certain buildings or worlds only.
When you live in these row houses, you will also hear more sounds from your neighbours as in apartments in TS4. It would be cool to have many different type of houses like this. You have the cheaper looking ones in a row, but also the fancy or modern looking ones. The world will have districts and similar style houses in that area. It will make it easy for us to decide where to live and what type of houses to build there. Of course we should be able to demolish everything and build whatever we want there. Maybe we could give traits to each district so only certain type of sims (which will be NPC's. We can decide for ourselves with our own Sims) would come and live there. No rich snobby sim wants to get a poor, slobby and asocial neighbour right? It will also improve storytelling more and NPC's won't just randomly move in if they can't afford the neighbourhood or have certain personality traits.
Households should fit in their homes too. Bedrooms will be counted and random NPC household would never move in a house that has too less bedrooms. It's a pretty annoying thing we have now in our game.
Another type of row houses I would like to see are these:
Maybe for a more fancy neighbourhood?
I think there should be empty buildings or stores under these type of houses available:
So sims can buy or rent the space and open a business. This way, sims can live above their own store or just go to work right across the street. This idea makes me so excited! Endless possibilities is what i need to feel! Some spaces will already be rented by sims in the neighbourhood or just commutiy lots such as cafes, small newspaper/magazine/drug store stores, 24/7 markets where sims can get late night snacks etc. I will go further into this in 'neighbourhoods community lots'.
households should be able to rent more than just 1 place. Not just for multiple businesses, but also as a second or third home. Maybe for their kids or as a holiday/summer house in another world/district.
-Neighbourhood activity-
An open world would be amazing to get back. I might be able to accept open districts. Not like what we have now, but where ALL the lots in the district are open, so we can at least visit the cafe on the corner of the street or visit a neighbours house. The houses don't have to be actively loaded inside, but at least sims and neighbours should come out sometimes to work in their garden/balcony, clean out the trash, check the mail, if they have kids, they should play in their yard. We need a more vibrant neighbourhood. That has always been killing me from the beginning.
When the weather is nice, sims would play or work outside more, or maybe even just sit on their porch with a drink or magazine/newspaper.
Sims will go more outside and enjoy their garden more when the weather is good. Sims with a nosy trait will always come and visit you when you arrived new in your neighbourhood. As well as knock on your door whenever there is a fight or a party going on.
You should be able to see sims go off to their job/school and do their daily tasks which should also make sense.
Cars should be in the game from the base game and in neighbourhoods like these with houses in a row, there should be parking spots all over the district in front of the houses as shown in the pictures. Sims will park at the nearest open parking spot near the lot they are heading to.
In general, per district, all the houses should have sims go in and out, community lots should be open to visit without a loading screen. Sims will visit these lots and be active on them without you being there. The neighbourhood will be alive! Sims will be walking/biking/jogging/driving all around the neighbourhood just as what we have now in TS4.
A district would contain min. 10 lots. Houses in a row count as 1 lot just as apartments do now even when they have 4 apartments in them. There is no loading screen within the district. It doesn't matter what type of lot you visit. We will need plenty of empty lots too as well as empty under house spaces to rent as a store/office etc.
-Neighbourhood community lots-
Talking about offices. How long have we been asking for the career lawyer? Imagine you could rent an office space and just practise your hobby/open job and get money out of that. As in now, when we have the painting, writing, gardening, social media career. We could have more like that and just rent a space if you need a place of your own, set it up how you like and work from there. It is of course not needed, but some jobs require that extra space that you might not have at home. Think about an art studio or you can also do it for other reasons; to escape the kids, your spouse or whatever
I see a lot of creative ideas coming with this one. You can rent any space and do whatever you desire with it job-wise. With this idea, we will need a lot of open jobs to vary different type of office/studio spaces and not just stores/restaurants/cafe of bakeries. I will go into this subject more on the 'jobs and careers'.The type of lots I would love to see in a district are those easy lots where sims can just blow off some steam, pick up a thing or two, meet with their friends or just hang and do some time. Such things as a coffeebar to just simply grab a coffee in the morning before going off to work. Without the loading screens, you are more likely to do this and your stories will expand itself by all these possibilities. A local bar, book store (sims can come and do their homework here as well), playground for kids, stores (we need shopping back! Also clothing shopping), drugstore that also sells magazines/newspaper, a 24/7 market that stays open all day and night for sims to buy some crappy late night snacks at, regular market for the groceries, a garage for when the car broke down. And the rest can be filled with any type of store you like. With 10 lots this should be doable. If the houses in a row contain out of 5 houses and let's say 3 have stores under them: 2 can be filled already with some on these lists. Like this we just spend 1 lot out of 10. If the sims 3 could manage to load like a 100 lots at the same time, this should work too. And houses won't be loaded on the inside unless you knock the door and the sims are home and let you in. Without the houses being fully loaded, it should be easier.
Not all stores or houses have to be in a row ofcourse, just some parts of a district. Stores, community lots or office spaces could also just be a seperate lot. You can build the town however you like anyway and just choose the lot type when you build.
Ok! that's it for today. Share some of you ideas if you like. Don't forget to incl. pictures and detailed explanation. Let's hope for a great Sims 5 game!
Post edited by FurSimsOfficial on
23
Comments
Return of some sort of color wheel.
All clothing items separated.
Ability to place any size lot anywhere.
No slot requirements. Able to place objects anywhere.
Gradual aging. Optional.
Recipes that require ingredients to be on hand.
Ability to create your own recipes based on available ingredients.
Return of some sort of color wheel.
Yes to this and at least basic colors. I can not live without CC in the sims 4. Mainly because of the mismatching colors and the items are also way too big and out of proportion.
All clothing items separated.
Also a good one. After so many series, i think this should definitly make it in The sims 5. It would be a great new addition and not even too hard. So what if my sim wants to wear a dress over a pants or nothing under a coat
No slot requirements. Able to place objects anywhere.
At least we should be able to have more flexible slots. Like how we have the half slots now. It's many times ridiculous that i cant place a chair near a couch when there is no conflict at all. Sims teleport or go through items all the time, so what is the issue here.
Gradual aging. Optional.
THIS! It would be a dream. I always feel weird when they jump into a next generation especially from a toddler to a child, child to teen and adult to elder. it doesn't feel right and all their friends suddenly look so wrong cause of the giant age difference.
Have questions about necroposting? Check out our Necroposting thread.
Bugs/Issues should be posted on Answers HQ, learn more over on Update on The Sims 4 Help Center.
- Cars
- Sims that can truly interact with each other including dance together or react when caught cheated on
- Facial stubble and beards separated unlike the options we have now want a beard style like a mustache you are stuck with a baby face
- Body hair
- Piercings beyond ears
- Option to edit and rename worlds or even better a CAW tool
- Color wheel
- Water tool
- Basic NPCs such police and firemen
Basic NPC like police and firemen
More than 8 people in a household
Appartments like the OP
Ability to place any size lot anywhere (Sims 2 style)
Cars and bikes like Sims 2 where they actually use them and not plop in.
Furniture with matching colors like Michelle did: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=613880 So you can match various styles of furniture with eachother. No color wheel needed.
I don't need an open world or active careers. Oh and I never go to community lots so I don't care about that.
Less cartoony art style
Open world or truly open neighborhoods
If not open world, please handle time like Sims 2 so we do not lose part of the life of the sims we leave at home when we take another one out on the town
cars/bikes
If emotions are included, please make them meaningful
Basic NPCs like police, fireman, and burglars
Traits that matter and impact the sim's personality
Teens that are a different height
Grocery stores where we can shop for groceries
Free babies
Terrain tools/water tool
Fishing anywhere in water, not just at specific points
Landline phones
Newspapers
Interests and magazines that can encourage their interests
Attractions system
Favorites (food/color/music/tv stations/etc.) that have an effect on sim's mood
You mentioned row houses, lets take that a step further.
This is The Shambles.
Imagine something like that in TS5. But all of it being for rent. Rent a flat upstairs, or an office, rent a shop downstairs. Set up a cafe, a bakery, a lawyers office, a private investigators office, a dental clinic, a candy shop.
I would love a tiny, but well populated neighbourhood that allows for flexible use. Make the whole thing an open neighbourhood, with 8-12 (or more) individual places to rent. Let the player decide what they want them to be.
If a magic pack was added, turn it into your own diagon alley (it was based on the shambles after all).
Here is ye olde town of Poole in the Shire of Dorset:
There is a Facebook group that I am on where someone has uploaded a lot of interesting pictures of the old town
Sure:) but since they are ideas we have for The Sims 5 i thought it would be more appropriate in the ideas section. No?
Probably from Holland, since I am dutch and used the dutch word to search them
And actual Dutch colonial:
I think they put it in speculation because it's still speculation that the Sims 5 is coming or not.
Could be. Doesnt matter, let the ideas flow in
nice
THE BEST OF EVERYTHING!!!
(From 1,2,3 & 4)
So, this is what I'd need:
WORLDS
Graphic style
I like TS4's cartoony style and would like a similar approach in TS5, but with much more realistic nature scenery. I looooooove TS3's beautiful nature scenery, but TS4 disappoints me in this area because it looks too fake. The water in TS4 looks awful...
Open world
I like TS3's open world because it makes the game feel more realistic. While it is handy to be able to zap anywhere in no time in TS4, I like having to put thought into where I make my sims live and how special a trip is when it comes to how long it takes to get places in the world. As an example, if work is most important to my sim, then I'll get a house/apartment near the workplace, but that means that trips to other parts of town is more of a special trip. If my sim values nature, I'll let them live in the greener areas away from the city centre, but then trips to the bustling parts are more significant.
Travelling freely between worlds
Like in TS4. Because this game would be open world, only one world map at a time is loaded. If a sim crosses the border to a new world, a loading screen will pop up. Unlike TS4, every world is quite big (average about the size of Windenburg), thus offering a lot of freedom. Every world should have all the necessary lots so hopping between worlds isn't needed. Of course, to avoid endless loading screens between worlds, if crossing a world border, a menu pops up where you can choose which world you want to load now.
Moving to another world is just as easy as it is in TS4 and your sims don't lose anything like in TS3.
Editing/creating worlds
Many people love the freedom of creating their own worlds. TS5 should include a simplified but detailed tool for creating beautiful worlds of our own. TS3's CAW is a bit tricky for many people, so that's why I say "simplified." The tools should be easy to learn to use and effective.
Editing a pre-made world should also be possible - plopping down new lots, trees etc. and maybe even editing the terrain to create a new little island or a hill etc.
Rabbit holes
I like TS4's approach to "opening up" rabbit holes. I'd like all the rabbit hole buildings from TS3 to be opened up so we can be on the inside and even remodel everything. Of course though, we don't have to hang around because the world is open, so if we want our sims to just watch the movie without our interference, we can control another sim somewhere else in the world.
Career buildings
The previously rabbit hole career buildings will be opened up so we have the option of controlling our sims while they work, but it should be optional. The "office" in which our sims do jobs such as journalist, teacher, part time jobs etc. is a small rabbit hole inside the open building, but if we wish to quickly have them socialize or run an errand, we can make them do that. In some jobs (such as interior decorater, investigator etc.) it is required of the player to play it out actively, but otherwise the open career feature is mostly just for freedom. The traditional "rabbit hole menu" of work hard/work normally/socialize/build skills etc is still there if you don't attend.
SIMS
Alive and unique sims
Story progression is important to many simmers as it makes the game feel ever-changing and alive. There should be an optional toggle though for rotational players.
Population and townie control should be optional, as in TS4. Toggles for supernaturals, celebrities, certain types of animals etc. A general dressing style can be assigned to a world, ex. "Futuristic" in a very modern city, "1920's" in a vintage glam type city, Medieval, casual, formal etc. This option can also be left alone to let sims dress as they please.
Backstories are awesome and, as OP said, make sims feel alive instead of just being plopped down. Some built-in drama would be fun, such as certain families starting out with negative relationships, and certain families having a history of friendship etc.
While TS4 tries to make less traits that are more general, I think many simmers prefer more specific traits like in TS3. There is a big difference in how it feels to make a sim "Flirty" vs making them Hopeless romantic, Great kisser and Player etc. Specific traits make the sims more unique and quirky.
Traits should really affect sims' behaviour, wishes and how they succeed in certain skills, careers and activities. There has to be a good balance, though - just because a sim is a Player, it shouldn't mean that they can NEVER settle down.
Maybe certain traits can change throughout a sim's life if the sim's behaviour is constantly contrasting the trait. As an example, if a sim is a bookworm but goes an entire life stage without reading anything, that trait will disappear; if a sim is a player but falls in love and stays faithful for a very long time, that trait will fall away etc. (unless, of course, the sim cheats - then the player trait will come back again.)
The game should detect if a sim repeats certain actions a lot and then start to automatically make the sim do that. Ex, if a sim is directed to read the newspaper in their armchair under the bay window every Friday morning at 09h, the game will eventually direct the sim to do it without you having to (unless, of course, if the sim is very tired/hungry/busy with something else).
Add many options to make sims unique: favourites (music/food/colour/activity) and dislikes (music/food/colour/activity); quirks and flaws (weird laugh, clumsy, impatient, gassy, stutter, lightweight with juice etc); turn-ons and turn-offs; fears; star signs. Diet shouldn't be a trait, but a special "diet" option: vegetarian, vegan, pescetarian, omnivore.
Lifetime Wishes more like TS3's - I feel that TS4's step-by-step milestones are too limiting. If my sim wishes to be a master painter but really can't be bothered with going to the museum all the time, then it is annoying to be forced to do things my sim doesn't want to.
More voice options. Three per gender isn't enough, even with pitch sliders. I think that even adding just 1 extra for each gender would be a huge improvement.
Create a Style is essential. With this tool, the options are endless with what you can do to make a sim, their clothes and their homes unique. I loooove the family in TS3's opening clip that has all-leopard print things. It's so quirky and unique and that's what I love about this game.
However, just because CAS is added, it shouldn't mean that we should get less Build/Buy items and clothing. TS3 felt restrictive because I ended up using the same furniture most of the time, just with different colours and patterns. TS4 is awesome with the wide variety of things we get. If only we can change the colour and patterns as well, it would be an interior decorater's paradise.
Relationships
I feel that making TS5 a socially complex game would give it a major distinction above the other iterations, as the whole point of The Sims is creating relationships. Sims should be very socially intelligent and feel like real virtual people. TS4's focus is on emotions, but TS5's focus should be this. The moment that the player feels completely engaged in the sims and the world around their sim, the player feels like there is purpose in their sim creating bonds and succeeding in life.
I love TS4's interactions as they feel quite involved and specific. Instead of "Chat" (TS3), I can "ask about day," "talk about dreams" and "talk about interests." This adds immersion and is essential for an involved experience.
However, I feel that there isn't enough distinction between different relationships in TS4. Acquaintances, friends and best friends don't feel all that different to me, except for a few extra interactions. Sims should be visually happy to see their friends, have more personal interactions, react in certain ways to certain things when their best friends are around (ex. be more giggly, more confident etc) and so on.
Enemies in TS4 are seriously saddening because there is next to no tension. Sims seem all too happy around their nemesis. Sims should behave differently when their enemy is within range (ex. being more grumpy, more likely to be mean etc.) and want to wreck havoc on their enemies' lives.
Interactions that allow sims to negatively (and positively, for friends and such) impact others' lives, would be a lot of fun. Spreading rumours, pranking, spitting in their food, gossiping about them, breaking up friendships and lovers (as well as spreading nice things, talking sims up towards another sim, introducing sims to each other, giving advice about ... [finances/love life/job/skill etc. that gives the sim a boost] etc. ) and so on. Sims can manipulate others into preforming certain interactions and influence other sims into behavioural changes. (The Manipulative trait boosts the success rate of convincing sims to act certain ways and change their opinion about other sims).
Sims can form clubs and cliques. Clubs are like in TS4 (bookclubs, gardening clubs etc) but cliques are entirely social. Cliques form from relationships, thus you need to befriend sims to make them part of your clique. Cliques can form rivalries with others, gain popularity/infamy etc. Cliques can form and evolve naturally/automatically as certain sims hang out all the time and usually act certain ways. Cliques can also drift apart if certain/all members stop interacting for a period of time.
Status/Reputation
Since TS5 sims would be socially conscious, sims will be act according to the social constructs of the world they live in. Certain sims are renown and respected in their town, thus sims will try to befriend them. Others are labelled as outcasts and are generally avoided. New-comers might either be interesting to townies or be met with apathy, depending on whether the world is a small town (where sims are generally more nosy and gossip more) a normal town (neutral) or a city (too many sims to keep track of everyone).
Reputations form according to how faithful sims are to partners, whether they contribute to society (have a job, take part in social events etc.) and who they choose to befriend/make enemies with. Sims may like/dislike other sims automatically according to whether their friends like/dislike them.
Gossip has more impact in TS5 as it can affect other sims' relationships and reputations, as well as the gossiper's reputation and relationships. Like in TS3, the gossip fact gets displayed on the screen in a pop-up. It would be cool if a notebook is included in a panel where players can pin secrets and gossip tidbits, as well as write down their social movements in relation to other sims' lives (dramaaaaa).
Other sims can also gossip about your sim, though, so sims might suddenly act differently towards you. Your sim can then ask around to trace back to who started the rumours and do with that information as they please
Change
TS5 should put a lot of emphasis on natural evolution. People are not static in real life - they change as they grow up and as things change around them. Sims' personalities, behaviour, general temperament and likes/dislikes can alter as they continuously act certain ways and are influenced by other sims, as well as when they are exposed to certain hardships (such as the death of a loved one or struggling financially).
I like TS4's "phases" in children and teens. This should be in TS5, but not restricted to only these life stages. Older sims can also go through phases where they think they are boring, their life is going in the wrong direction or they feel lonely. Sims can suddenly have an immense wish to travel the world, form new relationships, change their clothing style, wish to hangout at bars every night etc. This should, of course, be relevant to the sim's personality and life events. It would shake things up and be more realistic than a single Mid-life Crisis in one in every 3 adults.
Reactions and behaviour
As previously mentioned, sims' reactions and behaviours are affected by many factors. A sim has a general temperament and behaviour template according to their personality, their likes/dislikes etc. They will act like this most of the time. However, when they are around certain sims, their behaviour and reactions might change slightly (such as being more excitable around friends or being shy around a romantic interest etc). At certain social events, such as a wedding party, sims will generally be more well-mannered and reserved, but at house parties (especially if they have had some juice), they will act exactly as their personality pleases.
Juice and nectar (the Sims version of alcohol) will affect sims' behaviour in TS5. Just as sims in TS4 have "hidden traits" such as liking/disliking fruitcake, a sim will automatically be assigned a certain type of behaviour when they are "juiced." Behaviours include being overly friendly, flirty, over-sharing, hyper-active, sad etc. I think this would make the sims much more amusing and, since they kind of did this in TS3 Late Night, it shouldn't affect the age rating.
Since sims have detailed personalities, their reactions should be detailed according to their personalities. Sims in TS4 act the same in basically all situations, which really makes them feel the same.
Sobby sims should have more melancholy reactions when something bad happens to them, ex. if they get demoted, they will sulk and maybe want to eat ice cream in their pajamas. Stoic sims may keep a relatively straight face in most situations, and tend to prefer to be alone and stare into space if they are upset.
Emotions
Since TS4 had emotions, TS5 shouldn't be a downgrade and should thus include them too. However, TS5's emotion system would work much differently. Emotions will subtly affect a sim's body language and wishes, but their personality dictates how their emotions affect them. As an example, an over-emotional sim might let their emotions control them and act like sims in TS4. A Stoic sim will feel emotions just like others, but need more stimuli to achieve these emotions and even when they do get emotional, they will remain quite composed. Hot-headed sims let the Anger emotion control them, but react normally to other emotions. Basically, if a sim has an emotional trait, that specific emotion will have more power over them, BUT emotions do NOT affect all sims the same way and pale in comparison to the power of the sim's traits.
To regulate emotions, an "intensity bar"/"mood bar" can be included. Sims can get emotional buffs from various situations, but a certain threshold of emotional points has to be passed before that emotion will take effect. As an example, in TS4 a sim will immediately become happy if they get only 1 Happy buff (ex. from a nicely decorated environment). In TS5, a sim will need ex. 5 points to feel the happy emotion. A happy buff will increase the sim's mood, but not throw them into the emotion. If negative buffs are alongside positive buffs, the negative buffs will lower the sim's mood and thus possibly keep the sim from entering an emotion. This keeps sims from jumping between various emotions and thus gives emotions more of a point, as it is more challenging to achieve them.
Certain sims need more (or less) stimuli to achieve certain emotions, as explained with the Hot-headed and Over-emotional traits.
If sims have a myriad of emotional buffs at the same time, they might feel "confused," "agitated," or "overly emotional" and react according to their personality. A sim might have an emotional breakdown, feel unmotivated to do anything, get irritated quickly or get stressed and frantically attempt to do a lot of things at the same time.
More emotional states in each "main" emotion can be added. A sim may need 3 angry points to become irritated, 5 to become angry, 8 to become very angry etc. The same with happy (content, happy, very happy, euphoric), sad (dismayed, gloomy, sad, very sad, heartbroken) etc. These states vary in intensity and have subtle influences on sims' behaviour until the highest emotional state where the emotion might consume them. This allows the emotions to be less all-controlling, as in TS4.
Certain emotions can be mixed - a sim can feel embarrassed but happy, flirty but angry etc.
Certain buffs might boost other emotions - being embarrassed boosts the angry emotion, being tense boosts the embarrassed emotion etc.
Once again though, emotions should be more challenging to achieve and should only subtly influence sims' behaviour.
To alleviate negative emotions, sims can do things that cheer them up, such as eating their favourite food or engaging in their favourite activity. If a sim feels like they want to get rid of all their cooped-up emotions, though, there are ways that they can intensify the emotion and then either let it leave their system or wallow in it (ex. "cry it out" when watching a sad movie or "revel in melancholy thoughts").
Sims can also share their emotions with others and get advice, cry/rant together, get revenge together, enthuse about happiness etc. and may either make the other sim feel the same way (which might make the sims a better duo to go on a rampage/happy time together, or make the sim feel worse if the target sim feels that your sim is being irrational/annoying or raining on their parade [reaction is according to both sims' personalities and relationship]).
Memories
Memories should be optional - automatic or player-captured. Memories are stored in a scrapbook which can be looked at at any time. All sims have automatic memories by default, which makes it easy to snoop around a new roommate/spouse's past life if you want to look at their memories
Memories should affect sims in certain ways. If something very traumatic happened to a sim on a certain lot, they might be reminded of the incident and feel emotional or wish to do something related to it. If a sim ate pancakes every morning during their honeymoon, the sim might occasionally be reminded of it if eating pancakes again.
Memories might be tainted by life events. If a sim divorces, said pancake memory might become an unpleasant one. If a break-up made a sim sad but later that sim turns out to be an awful person, the sim might be grateful that they broke up.
Mourning
I can't believe that we still don't have funerals or graveyards in TS4. Death is as part of life as birth, so it needs enough focus in TS5 to make a good game. Funeral events with appropriate interactions and activities (ex. drinking tea, talking about the deceased, saying good [or bad] things about the deceased, talking about surviving relatives etc.) should be included, as well as graveyards where sims can place urns or tombstones in family plots. Sims will mourn the deceased for a period of time relevant to their relationship with the deceased sim. An acquaintance might be mourned for a day, a friend for a few days and a beloved relative for a week. If a sim witnessed the death, the sim might be traumatized and never truly get over the death.
Pirates!! http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/906481/pirate-gp-smuggling-dueling-live-on-ship-or-build-own-and-more#latest
THINGS INCLUDED IN BASE GAME
Seasons and weather
Come on, weather is a basic that one shouldn't be expected to pay extra for. Additional seasonal activities and fun things can be added in DLC, but the core should be in the base game. As an example, a Vacation DLC that takes advantage of the winter season can add skiing and snowboarding. A tropical vacation DLC can add fun things like cooling off at a pool bar etc. Honestly, the moment Seasons is in the core game, it is much easier to expand upon it in DLC - instead of having to update each pack to be compatible with a Seasons pack, the devs can just make it compatible with the base game. Seasonal packs in DLC apply to all game owners, not only Seasons owners. It's win-win.
Beach things
It is utterly ridiculous that we still don't have functional beaches in TS4. There should be ocean and pond swimming, some basic activities (like tanning and building sandcastles) and sufficient pool stuff to keep a player content upon release.
Some sort of pet
I know that Pets is a major best-seller DLC, thus I know that EA/Maxis wouldn't miss the opportunity to sell them for extra. However, I feel that there should be at least some minor pets in the base game. Maybe hamsters and birds. Pets add a sense of purpose for many players, thus it creates a lot of outrage when they have to wait for years each time a new iteration is released to get them.
Transportation
Obviously, if it is an open world, this will be crucial. It would be nice, however, if there are more types of transport from the start - buses and trains, taxis, motors, motorcycles and bicycles. Later, through a DLC, horses would be awesome as well. Boats and such for water travel, too.
A base game must be enjoyable on its own. DLC shouldn't be needed to make the game fun, but simply to add some colour to the already beautiful drawing.
GAMEPLAY
Opportunities
I looooove TS3's opportunities. It helps to give some direction when you don't know what to do next, makes the world feel more alive and sometimes literally provide opportunities for sims to grow. Example: my sim loves writing, but doesn't know what to do with her life. She gets a part-time job at the bookstore. She meets a famous sim and talks to her. Ring-ring, she'd like my sim to write her a biography. She writes a good one and decides to pursue writing career. Unfortunately, things aren't looking good for her. Ring-ring, the Bistro needs customers and asks my sim to write a review. Sensation! My sim is making a name for herself.
Opportunities should be optional, of course. But it really is a great feature.
Consequences
Consequences, challenges and hardships make the game much more enjoyable. I like comparing TS4 to a film without an antagonist - everything is boring because there are no risks. What's the point in doing something rebellious if there is no system that makes it relevant? If my sim can neglect her homework and graduate without any consequence, why would I bother making her spend all that time on it?
TS5 can have a toggle that regulates how often random deaths and such happen if they want a drama-free game. There should, however, be sufficient darkness in the game to make the good more worthwhile and meaningful, as well as deviance more fun. The original Sims was dark in a witty way, and I (and many long-time players) feel it's time to bring that back. Darkness does not equal to being offensive if it is done tastefully.
Lots of useful and creative hobbies
Since The Sims is a sandbox game, it should offer many opportunities to craft and create from scratch. Personally, I would love a bit of a Minecraft-like ability to use most raw materials that can be found in the world to create something. If I can grow flowers, I want to make bouquets or wearable flower-crowns. If I can find jewels and ores, I want to create jewelry and talismans. Produce should be required to make food (whether bought at the grocery store or grown) to make cooking more challenging and fun (no more magically paying for food on the stove). This is a playstyle of its own and will make the game infinitely more interesting for both long-time players and the new players that try the game specially for this ability.
Challenges such as The History challenge (and survival in general) would be much more fun and realistic if more items can be crafted from materials found in the world. As an example, if a sim finds wood under a tree, that wood can be used to create a crafting table. Now sims can create toys, sculptures, furniture etc. from different materials and build the world around them. This is simply applying the skills that The Sims have already explored in a different and refreshing way, but it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Lots of careers to choose from
Different careers add a certain energy to sims, thus there should be enough to satisfy a wide range of styles. Careers should offer unique opportunities, rewards and sometimes disadvantages to sims in their lives to realistically portray how work affects people.
School should not be overlooked
School often gets the short straw in The Sims. There should be nice things like after-school activities, field trips, events and prom to make school and children/teens more interesting to play with.
Elders should not be overlooked!
Elders are almost always neglected in the Sims series, which makes them quite boring to play and is a wasted opportunity. Add quirks and special activities for elders in TS5 that make them stand out and feel more unique. Things like knitting, playing Bingo, "Grandma's cookies" and typical things elderly people say, make for more interesting and nostalgic twilight years.
So yeah, that took me exceptionally long to type. In my opinion, TS4 should first be completed before TS5 even becomes a thought, but if TS5 is seriously a ground-breaking game, it might be the best the Life-simulator world has ever seen.
This game I detailed would take a LOT of resources to create, but I feel that it will be worth it. Simply adjust the base game's price to what it is worth and then create less but more detailed and good-quality DLC that people would gladly pay for.
Pirates!! http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/906481/pirate-gp-smuggling-dueling-live-on-ship-or-build-own-and-more#latest
Above all, I want them to take as long as it requires to get ir right. Many of the issues we've complained about, like the object babies and the missing toddlers, was because they simply ran out of time. And if you have to bring in people from outside Maxis, make sure they understand the Sims and the community. We're a pretty passionate bunch, and many of us have been around since the Will Wright era. We love our little pixel people and will fight to see them treated with dignity and respect by the developers, even if we torture and kill them in our individual games.
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
Vehicles - I think these could work in TS4 too, lack of an open world is no excuse.
Separate bed frame and mattress swatches like in TS2.
Terrain editing.
Going to write another page to expand some ideas now
I would also settle for some lots right next to eachother, without a gap and being able to just build right on the edge of that lot. This would make building highstreets and terraced houses so much easier. Right now they look so strange.
So talk is all about life stages, in this thread we can talk about what we want from the life stages, what we like from past and present life stages and what we feel could be improved on.
ne thing I have seen is a minor debate about weather players could avoid such life stages. I mean we all need young adults, but as explained in my past thread, some people want toddlers, others don't. So how do we get around this? How can some players avoid a life stage without depriving of their actually being a life stage in question?
Personally I think the TS3 way of being able to adjust the length of each stage works along with the option to turn aging off (my preference) as well as the option to age up early by the cake, but what about the problem of getting a negative trait if a toddler didn't receive the three basic training requirements, or if kids or teens didn't get an A grade? Easy to work around yes, but a grind for others perhaps?
I guess that TS2/ TS3 babies are more popular than object babies, other than that there isn't really much that needs to change about babies. Some players like them, others don't.
The mighty T word, the 'talk of the town' and something that some players feel is missing. It would be daft to leave them out of a future Sims game, but what can be improved on? The basic teach to walk, talk and potty interaction is all very well, as are the options to read books to toddlers as well as interactions, but what could spice the age group up a bit, as well as how could the age group be avoided if preferred?
New
Maybe once a baby grows into a toddler, the player has an option, maybe a mild opportunity to get a toddler skilled up for vantages that could be seen later in the game. Declining this opportunity would have no negative consequences, just an option to age a toddler up as and when the player likes with the option to choose any trait without being penalised. This way the players who don't want toddlers can age them up without any negative impact.
For those who are interested however, the option to skill toddlers up could provided vantages for them later in life. A chance to get them more lifetime points, if TS5 introduces them again, maybe a toddler could be faster at skill building or could gain hidden skills.
New interactions could be that toddlers could watch TV, a new kids show on TV that their could even gain a random skill from, or perhaps if they watch an adult channel, they could get 'scared' after all, I am sure we all saw things on TV that terrified us when we where younger?
Toddlers should be able o interact with more other life stages more such as children and parents could create play dates at home or a community lots, mother and toddler groups could be formed?
There has been a lot of focus on kids since TS1, and the game can be ever expanded for new things to do. Kids shouldn't miss out on too much in a base game or any EP. If players wish to grow a kid into a pre teen straight away however, they should still be able to choose a trait to make that age group avoidable.
Maybe kids could learn skills faster had their learn more as a toddler? Maybe kids could also be scared after watching certain TV channels? Play dates can still be arranged with kids and maybe a new 'youth club' type community lot could be available?
Why not have pre teens? Taller than kids, but not as much as actual teenagers. Maybe the difference in this age group to kids is more mature interactions. Pre teens want to go 'hang out' with kids their own age more. They can get crushes as a very mild romantic interaction and they could also get a part time job, for the first time ever they could be a news paper delivery person (considering news papers are back) or could run errands for parents.
Other new interactions could be skateboarding which could be a 'cool' new feature for the new age group. Those who wish to avoid this age group can grow them up to teenagers straight away without any negative impact.
Possibly one of the most popular age groups, teenagers should once again be slightly smaller than young adults.
Part time jobs should return in the TS2 format, where teenagers could have their own 'entry level' stage with stage two being stage 1 of the adult career and stage 3 being stage 2 if you get me? If a teen then grows to an adult, they could then get promoted to stage 3 in the adult career straight away. Teens could also be allowed to set the number of hours that they work so it can fit in with their schooling.
Romantic interactions should be cool, dating should be allowed and a curfew should be relaxed. (we are having Open World in TS5 aren't we?)
Teens can skateboard, hangout, party, get into trouble, throw eggs at houses and can join after school clubs. Organising group outings should be made easy as it was later in TS2 and teenage girls want to go clothes shopping. Mean teenagers will criticise other Sim's clothes while parents might scold them if they are caught watching an 'adult channel' on TV.
This is the life stage when Sim's become adults and they can get full time or maybe just part time jobs. If they got good grades as a teen, there might be an advantage for them. Dating, marriage and pregnancy can follow as well as YAs can party and do social activities. This life stage will probably be the most expandable of the all.
These Sims can be the same as YAs but maybe look slightly older. Maybe if they failed at being a YA they could have a mid life crisis again. They would be more likely to want to get married at this stage while others would still want to party depending on traits. Again, this life stage will be the most expandable.
Elders should still be able to work full time but would want to retire at some stage. They should look like elders as well with wrinkles and walking sticks should be in the base game. Most elders would want to have grandchildren while others might even want to party. Elders could have the option of moving into a care home, to keep them out of the way for the players who want to avoid them
Sims can still die of old age, but you can avoid it if you leave aging off. New death types could effect Sims throughout their lives of course and maybe we could even have the Grim Reaper age over time to spice things up?
-Districts- Since we have multiple worlds like what we have now in TS4 where sims can easily travel through without losing anything, as said before, every world is also divided into districts. Let's say we should get min. 5-7 different districts.
If we can not have an open world, open districts are at least an option. But to be honest, an open world should be doable. Im imagining districts to look like these:
The more nostalgic, cheaper, small family owned shops type of district:
(I am watching bob's burgers
This would be one of the old factory/studio apartments. You can turn these places into a cool apartment or a business place. However you like! they are surely stunning to redecorate! There will also already be existing lots and sims living ofcourse. Work places and homes is what you can find here:
The more American style area as what we know from the previous sims games. With separate houses/bungalows and the American dream type of district where all houses are a bit the same looking and have newly weds living in them or families with children. The more family friendly neighbourhood where the traffic isn't all that crazy and the city sounds are far in the background. There are parks and playgrounds for kids. Maybe in the middle of the living area when there is a circle of houses around of it. Maybe 3 parts in the district are like this, so you can have different types of houses:
Another type of the row houses are the modern ones in their special district. They are either apartments or single houses side to side in a row. Here won't be any work office or store, but feel free to add one. This is usually filled with newly weds which the district should also get the trait for that. Or young couples, usually no kids, or single sims etc. The district will have houses like these and will all be modern and kind of cubic, different, big glass windows wise. It's usually for medium to high class sims:
The brickstone houses in a backstreet if the busy city. They are fancy looking and won't be filled with poor sims. Maybe a cafe or small store on the corner of each street, one lawyer office, but not too busy. You know, these kinds:
And of course the richest area with separate lots and villa's on them. Let's not forget the landgraab's
Then we have the another business related area but with a lot of modern looking offices are for rent, apartments, higher buildings, franchise shops etc. The big change we get here is that offices can also be spaces INSIDE an building since we would have the option to either rent or buy the lot/space as a business or home. This way work places will not just be single empty lots you have to build yourself. Not everyone is a builder and even as a builder myself, I like to get surprised sometimes by beautiful simple empty rooms to decorate to my desire. The ability to demolish the whole building and use it as a single lot should also be possible. Which means you can just use a lot for a single house/work place or build a building with multiple levels for rent or sale. This opens up so many opportunities and wouldn't even require too much from the game performance.
We just need to ability to build everything ourselves and not like TS4 where worlds, lots and apartments are glued to the ground and there's nothing creative to do about it. It will get boring shortly after and it cuts into the creativity of the player which is what the sims should be all about!
The business related area would look like this:
Imagine you can rent/buy these work spaces with a view like that!
-Jobs/careers-
To expand the endless options you have with this new addition, we would need also a bunch of basic and nice jobs/careers that would go along with it perfectly. As said before, open careers such as the social media, painting or writing career would already make sense to rent/buy an office space for. We need more of them! And this time the basic ones would not be forgotten.
When you choose to play with an open career (it should always be optional just as we have now in TS4, even if you already rented an office space), sims can invite other sims to work in their office too just like them. They can split the rent, but also have to deal with them walking on the floor all day and maybe disrupting them from their work. It's not like your their boss, you just work together.
Here a list of more (or upgraded) jobs that would work well with a work space and how a day at work would look:
* Lawyer: Meet clients, have a talk where sims can sit down at their desk or around a table. However you desire. It could work the same as what we have now in TS4 where you choose a interaction and then click on a place to sit and sims automatically go and sit there to continue their conversation. If you click on a certain sitting place, your own sim will sit there, so clients would not sit behind you desk. I think this would work best, so you can vary different 'talk through case with client' option. A pop-up will appear of a certain case. Maybe it's even against the book store around the corner and your sim is friends with the owner! You can then decide to either accept or decline the case. In this careers are more challenging and winning money would really depend on the choices your sim makes and how his/her life plays out.
Other tasks for a lawyer would be working on their computer such as 'research case', 'search for evidence to use' (also a mean option should be available for those mean sims who stab others in the back for a chance to win a case), 'sort cases' etc. No one likes a messy lawyer! If you neglect to sort out all your cases too long, it would effect your job performance and chances to loose at the court are higher which obviously influences your career too. They can also do these options on a real stack of papers, maybe through a bookcase of a special lawyers file drawer. This is just to name a few tasks a lawyer could have. Maybe they would have to leave the office once in a while to go to court for a case. And if you have your office in this business area, the court would be just around the corner.
* Social media career: Maybe they need to expand this more into an instagrammer, youtuber section too. And where you get to meet other famous social media personalities or you need to deal and meet with fans you can invite over at the office. Or do corporations with business to promote their product, so your sim can invite them over to their office which will always increase their chances instead of meeting at home or elsewhere. It would be cool if you actually really need to make a nice picture of the product and upload in on your account. Things need to get more depth and meaning. This could give it.
Writing career: blogger section could be added here where you sim needs to go out and search for ideas and inspiration to write about. Make pictures of food he/she eats at restaurants, places your sims visits etc. It would all increase the career performances.
* Designing/casting: How about a career where sims could design clothes and cast sims to walk a fashion show and show of your combinations. Maybe it would contain just existing clothes, but just combinations your sim created that would after be worn by sims in town if it was a success. You need to meet clients, cast them, design on a designing table, set outfits etc.
* Any kind of art studio: Whether you are painter, crafter, wood maker or sewer, you need your own studio. You can set up an event in the event menu and create a sell, expedition or art show right in your office and sims can get exclusive invitations or it will be open for everyone. You can set the time and dress code if you like to. Sims will then come in and maybe buy your stuff. That would work as the retail business. It is nice to officially set up a sales event right in your work space.
* Repairer/engineering: Sims can get a job as a repairs man and get objects over to repair/upgrade. You will probably need a big office space for this and the studio apartment/old fabrics district would be perfect! You and your co-workers could accept more jobs when there is more place to place all the broken items that need to be fixed. Clients will come and pick their item up, either happy or not depending on if you fixed the item on time and repaired/improved what they asked.
* Designing/interior: Like in TS3 where you get a job and have to visit a sim's house. this will also be good if any house needs to be upgraded, cause of a new family that moves in, a new born child, kids that moved out etc. YOUR sims will fix it all! So depending on the story-line of your town, your sim will get a job to do. If you play with story-telling off, you will just do make-overs of existing rooms mostly. In your office, you have more space for a drawing table and level up your designing skill that will come in handy to decide your clients satisfaction. Other things to do in the office are to search online for ideas, simterest (pinterest) ideas for later that level up your interior designing skill too.
Photographer: A photo studio where sims will come for single pictures, couple pictures, family pictures. Just shoot some portraits etc. You can also choose another section in the career where you make your own photos of your surrounding and sell them professionally.
For renting office prices.. they should not be crazy expensive. Of course depending on the district, what part of the district and the size of the space, it shouldn't conflict with the salary of a sim is most cases. Sims that do not win crazy much, should still be able to rent a small office space. But of course, the lower your level in your career, the lower the district and smaller the office. Usually the highest functions will get the best offices in the city centre, but if you are good lawyer working on a good level of your career, it is very likely to rent an office space in a good place in the centre. And sharing it with others works great too!. Regular working sims can also afford some cheaper and smaller offices in the centre. It's all democratic
That's it again for today. Will write soon enough when new ideas are coming