When you want to hang out in their house, you can do so with a loading screen.
Which is exactly what my original comment was regarding .... this "open neighborhood" we were told about, is not REALLY open because I can't go inside my neighbor's house without hitting a loading screen, I can't visit retail stores, restaurants, bars, lounges, libraries, pool venues and so on that is IN MY SIM'S NEIGHBORHOOD, sometimes right next door to their house, without hitting a loading screen.
I thought it was going to be, you know actually open, as in all of the areas, lots, houses, community venues, etc, etc I would have access to freely go visit without a loading screen until I ventured past that particular neighborhood.
What use is an open neighbourhood if there are no sims at the venues when you visit? When they announced that TS3 would have an open world I was excited at the idea, but then the idea didn't match the reality. All the sims my sim was trying to meet or befriend, suddenly had to go home or to work, there were no clients in the bar because all five of them got stuck in the elevator, and the venues were almost all rabbitholes, so visiting them wasn't even an option. In TS4 at least you can avoid the loading screen if you create an open air venue.
When you want to hang out in their house, you can do so with a loading screen.
Which is exactly what my original comment was regarding .... this "open neighborhood" we were told about, is not REALLY open because I can't go inside my neighbor's house without hitting a loading screen, I can't visit retail stores, restaurants, bars, lounges, libraries, pool venues and so on that is IN MY SIM'S NEIGHBORHOOD, sometimes right next door to their house, without hitting a loading screen.
I thought it was going to be, you know actually open, as in all of the areas, lots, houses, community venues, etc, etc I would have access to freely go visit without a loading screen until I ventured past that particular neighborhood.
In TS4 at least you can avoid the loading screen if you create an open air venue.
How? We can't even walk onto an empty lot without a load screen.
FYI: Just because you can see my signature, don't assume that I can see yours.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
It is a pain to have to go through a loading screen just to visit your next door neighbor and another to go home again. Say my sims are hanging out at home with the neighbors, and I want them to take the hang out session to the neighbor's lot. It's so frustrating to watch the neighbor seamlessly go to that lot but I have to go through a load screen and if I had an action queued before I leave when I finally get there I've lost the action and have to get everyone gathered back up. At first I missed the worlds in TS3 but over time this way has grown on me and I wouldn't want to go back. Just get rid of the loading screens please Maxis.
What is noticeable is that there is a significant dip in performance if you use mods to allow more sims on the lot and increase the household size, so I suspect this has a bearing on the design decision to go for a single lot. My machine starts to nope out at around 50 sims on the lot, though I have pushed it to 100 controllable sims once - for science
There could be possibilities if there was more scope for customising the surrounding neighourhoods. Windenburg Town is particularly woeful in the lack of interactions outside the lots compared to Willow Creek or Oasis springs.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
I started playing TS2 for the first time recently, and to my surprise I've been really liking how it does lot travel. When you come back its the same time as when you left, and that way I can have multiple characters go out to different places in the same time span (unlike TS4) without having to juggle them both at once (unlike TS3). Highly doubt that's how they'll do it in TS5 though, sadly.
Since its not happening, I would be fine with TS4's system again or actually open neighborhoods in TS5 like other people have suggested. Actually open neighborhoods probably won't be too much to implement since as is all the other lots are clearly being rendered, letting us walk around in them probably shouldn't be too much more?
When you want to hang out in their house, you can do so with a loading screen.
Which is exactly what my original comment was regarding .... this "open neighborhood" we were told about, is not REALLY open because I can't go inside my neighbor's house without hitting a loading screen, I can't visit retail stores, restaurants, bars, lounges, libraries, pool venues and so on that is IN MY SIM'S NEIGHBORHOOD, sometimes right next door to their house, without hitting a loading screen.
I thought it was going to be, you know actually open, as in all of the areas, lots, houses, community venues, etc, etc I would have access to freely go visit without a loading screen until I ventured past that particular neighborhood.
In TS4 at least you can avoid the loading screen if you create an open air venue.
How? We can't even walk onto an empty lot without a load screen.
My bad, just checked this in game and we can go all the way to the edge of the lot. I guess I don't find the loading screens intrusive at all, so much that I don't really notice them.
When you want to hang out in their house, you can do so with a loading screen.
Which is exactly what my original comment was regarding .... this "open neighborhood" we were told about, is not REALLY open because I can't go inside my neighbor's house without hitting a loading screen, I can't visit retail stores, restaurants, bars, lounges, libraries, pool venues and so on that is IN MY SIM'S NEIGHBORHOOD, sometimes right next door to their house, without hitting a loading screen.
I thought it was going to be, you know actually open, as in all of the areas, lots, houses, community venues, etc, etc I would have access to freely go visit without a loading screen until I ventured past that particular neighborhood.
In TS4 at least you can avoid the loading screen if you create an open air venue.
How? We can't even walk onto an empty lot without a load screen.
My bad, just checked this in game and we can go all the way to the edge of the lot. I guess I don't find the loading screens intrusive at all, so much that I don't really notice them.
I get that. The loading screens don't really bother me, either. It would be nice not to have them, but not if it were to mean a significant performance hit if we didn't have them.
FYI: Just because you can see my signature, don't assume that I can see yours.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
I prefer an open world. The loading screens don't bother me so much (though I spend more time on loading screens in the Sims 4 than the Sims 3). What bothers me is in multi-sim households, there are times where you are forced to focus on only one sim. For instance, if you have a sim in the painting career, they have their painting work assignments which means if you want to do the work, your other sims have to stay on the lot. Or if you want the teen to go on a date, then the painter sim has their career progress affected.
I'd be fine with a closed world if there were some way to allow for non-active sims to go on with their own projects.
This is one of the reasons why I enjoy Sulani so much, it might not be an open world, but the neighborhood is fairly open. I had my sim live in "town" and between the potlucks in the community center and the family days on the beach and going jogging in the area or swimming in the beach I very rarely loaded another lot than the one my sims were on and I loved it! I even have a sort of graveyard in the open neighborhood!
I have to say though, that I don't feel the need for an open world per say, as it to me makes sense with a loading screen if I am going across town, but I would really want open neighborhoods so that my sim can walk over to her sister who lives next door without one. Or the kids can play in the park across the street without me having to abandon the rest of the family. I love that in Sulani one member of the family can be playing with dolphins, while another is tending garden and a third one is joining in fishing competition, all in different locations and it just works!
I'm tired of loading screens, I think the solution in the sims4 works when playing a single sim or when traveling with a few sims but if you want to play an entire household and have them do things while you are visiting another lot like a night club, the whole system falls apart. Sims will stay awake at night and will not have enough needs taken care of if you wanted to do something with them the next day.
And this! Very much this! I hate that when my teenager has snuck out, the entire family is up when they come home. Or when I had a sim owning a restaurant, therefore working late at night almost every night, and when she came home her toddlers would be up at 2 am! I don't really need to control every sim if I'm not in the same neighbourhood, but they should be able to go to bed and be asleep when your sim returns at the very least.
Moreover, I advise that the cart button must be destroyed!
Look, as long as I don't have to be stuck in the same world forever and can go from Oasis Springs to Glimmerbrook to Strangerville without losing my Sims relationships, jobs, memories, etc, I don't care what they do.
It's funny because I loved the open world of TS3 at the time and hated it at first when it was taken away from us. But now I prefer the loading screens to the downsides of the open world.
I'm not even too fussed about having open neighbourhoods anymore - unless it is a community area. It would be nice to be able to designate an area as community and have that be open so that all shops and entertainment could be visited without loading screens but I cannot see a way for them to do that unless it was EA-designated districts.
My TS3 experience is similar. I loved open worlds when I played TS3, but going back to it recently, it was really kind of tedious and overwhelming...the long travel time, watching your sim run to the road to drive a suddenly materializing car across town, the huge map you had constantly figure out. It now seems way worse than any loading screen, to me. I also like being able to travel freely between worlds. I would like open neighborhoods, though, especially in smaller worlds. I should be able to take a sim out in Glimmerbrook and walk all over that place without a loading screen.
It's been really hard for the Sims 4 to keep my attention for long periods of time because it's not an open world.
That is the sole issue with the game for me. I just hate the loading screens and more than anything, I hate that if I take one sim out, I have no control over the rest of the family.
This has hugely affected the amount of sims that I play with at a time as well as the amount of time that I spend on a game before getting tired of it.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Is there any hope for the Sims to become an open world again?
At this point and time I would have to say no. Open World was great for me but it going to take more than a Open World for me to stay interested in Sims 4 as there are other tools Sims 4 needs. What I really want is the tools to create my own neighborhoods, put down lots and edit the sizes, colors outside of the primary section. As I played Sims 4 over time I got tired of the same old neighborhoods and I feel EA/Maxis made a mistake cutting out all features that let me achieve what I wanted to achieve, I feel they could have given us some of the tools but that would have cut into their plan of selling Neighborhoods. If I had a choice between open world and creation tools, I would take the tools of self creation. Open Neighborhoods and Open Worlds are basically the same thing except Open Neighborhoods are on a smaller scale. I believe the in the technology of today and not technology of yesteryear for Devs are doing things that were not possible back in the day and also EA/Maxis has a terrible history of maintaining or tweaking what they have. Imo they put out the program but not the work of properly maintaining what they had and there are examples of that. EA/Maxis regressed and brought back loading screens like WOW that is a real step in going forward.
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Just a note about managing sims who stay at home while I’m out with another sim: I don’t let them sleep until bedtime. I have them work on skills when I arrive at the other lot. Then I just peek at their needs once in a while and select “care for self” when something looks too low. If their energy is going up and their hunger is lower, I’ll switch back to skilling and immediately “care for self” again so they stop sleeping and start eating instead. It sounds more tedious than it is, it’s not a big deal as long as you remember to check in. Then when I take the sim home, everyone is up, of course, but I can send everyone to bed and it’s usually what they need.
Just make the neighborhoods really open and we can start to feel like leaving the sims house. I would also like the neighborhoods to be a little bigger or with 2 or 3 more lots to put more places to visit. Those loading screens inside the neighborhood are terrible indeed.
Wish list:
- Cars, motorcycles, bycicles. (Detailed animations)
- Wild Animals (Interactive)
- Thief and Celebrity (Better and more active!)
- Bands
- Farming or Medieval EP
- Cyberpunk or Asian GP
- Beach.
Just make the neighborhoods really open and we can start to feel like leaving the sims house. I would also like the neighborhoods to be a little bigger or with 2 or 3 more lots to put more places to visit. Those loading screens inside the neighborhood are terrible indeed.
My sims leave their house all the time, even for a few days at a time. They go to visit some place or a festival, then they go to some restaurant or cafe to eat something, then maybe do some fun thing or chores around the house and sometimes they get a phone call to go somewhere in the evening and they go and somehow arrive home three days later. I like how the lots are set up now because this means that a reasonable amount of sims will populate the community lots when we visit, so the places feel lively. In TS3 with its open neighbourhood, the community places were always deserted with only one or maybe two sims present.
With playing both Sims 3 & Sims 4, it seems that Sims 4 is way more open than Sims 3 ever was. Yes there were drivable cars/trucks/motorcycles, however the actual worlds were more closed off.
With playing both Sims 3 & Sims 4, it seems that Sims 4 is way more open than Sims 3 ever was. Yes there were drivable cars/trucks/motorcycles, however the actual worlds were more closed off.
Yes, the worlds was closed off but there are many elements in a open world/Neighborhood other than connecting them such as travelling within a neighborhood or world w/o encountering a loading screen so for me Sims 4 is not open now and to get more technical it would be if the sim can walk into the other worlds w/o a loading screen as each neighborhood would then be seamless. Also the cars or vehicles was a enhancement of the open world/neighborhood concept in which it does not exist in Sim 4. However Sims 3 is the older version but EA/Maxis could have expanded on the open neighborhood even with the connected components but chose not to as not to mess with the performance of Sims 4 instead of tweaking the program like today where technology has evolved very quickly but Sims 4 story or path has been chosen already and that is my opinion.
Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
At this point in the Sims 4 gamelife, I imagine that any changes to the world would be extremely unlikely. Like, extremely extremely.
FWIW, I'd support Open Neighborhoods of 5, maybe 6 lots. But that's not going to happen either.
I would too but EA/Maxis has froze up and chose the safe zone.
Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
YEEESSSS! I totally understand what you mean. I feel like I can only "really care" about, ONE family member, and give them my real focus. Cause the second you leave the lot you can only have minute involvement with those left behind. It is so freaking frustrating. Yeah you can have them work skills or needs, but if you are trying to give them any specific story, or need specific tasks done, forget about it. I makes my families feel like supporting cast to the one true character.
I actually wasn't even going to play 4, ever, because of the closed world. After Sims 3, I never wanted to be back on closed lots. Never wanted to see a loading screen again. I didn't have any lag or the bugs others had in Sims 3. 3 and 4 run the same on my pc. My lots always had sims on them. And I used a mod, for rotational play, so I was able to turn off story progression for my played households. P E R F E C T! But then 2 years ago when I thought Sims 5 would surely be coming soon (I believed with an open world), I started playing 4 just so I could get familiar with the updates, new UI, and changes. I thought some might transition into the next game and wanted to be ready. THEN they said, nope, not coming soon! WTH EA!
That all said, I will at least acknowledge that my load screens are about 3 seconds long, so that part isn't as bad as it could be. I do think some people who don't see them as a problem, might not realize others can have very long load screens. I saw someone mention several minutes in another thread, and I was like, pffft nope, no way, no how, I wouldn't play the game like that. I just couldn't. But a load screen of ANY length to visit your neighbour really messes with game immersion.
In Sims 5 I want my Open World back, AND I want to continue our ability to travel between worlds seamlessly! I don't see why that cannot happen at all.
Features I'd like brought back from the dead.
| Picture in Picture mode | Custom Paintings | Preset scenarios for resident sims | Placing my own lots |
| Saving my own Buy Mode collections! | Saving an outfit in CAS | CaSt. Smaller is ok | Open World |
Comments
What use is an open neighbourhood if there are no sims at the venues when you visit? When they announced that TS3 would have an open world I was excited at the idea, but then the idea didn't match the reality. All the sims my sim was trying to meet or befriend, suddenly had to go home or to work, there were no clients in the bar because all five of them got stuck in the elevator, and the venues were almost all rabbitholes, so visiting them wasn't even an option. In TS4 at least you can avoid the loading screen if you create an open air venue.
How? We can't even walk onto an empty lot without a load screen.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
There could be possibilities if there was more scope for customising the surrounding neighourhoods. Windenburg Town is particularly woeful in the lack of interactions outside the lots compared to Willow Creek or Oasis springs.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Since its not happening, I would be fine with TS4's system again or actually open neighborhoods in TS5 like other people have suggested. Actually open neighborhoods probably won't be too much to implement since as is all the other lots are clearly being rendered, letting us walk around in them probably shouldn't be too much more?
My bad, just checked this in game and we can go all the way to the edge of the lot. I guess I don't find the loading screens intrusive at all, so much that I don't really notice them.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
I'd be fine with a closed world if there were some way to allow for non-active sims to go on with their own projects.
I have to say though, that I don't feel the need for an open world per say, as it to me makes sense with a loading screen if I am going across town, but I would really want open neighborhoods so that my sim can walk over to her sister who lives next door without one. Or the kids can play in the park across the street without me having to abandon the rest of the family. I love that in Sulani one member of the family can be playing with dolphins, while another is tending garden and a third one is joining in fishing competition, all in different locations and it just works!
And this! Very much this! I hate that when my teenager has snuck out, the entire family is up when they come home. Or when I had a sim owning a restaurant, therefore working late at night almost every night, and when she came home her toddlers would be up at 2 am! I don't really need to control every sim if I'm not in the same neighbourhood, but they should be able to go to bed and be asleep when your sim returns at the very least.
Which modder is working on the pack?
I just can't be stuck all in one world again.
My TS3 experience is similar. I loved open worlds when I played TS3, but going back to it recently, it was really kind of tedious and overwhelming...the long travel time, watching your sim run to the road to drive a suddenly materializing car across town, the huge map you had constantly figure out. It now seems way worse than any loading screen, to me. I also like being able to travel freely between worlds. I would like open neighborhoods, though, especially in smaller worlds. I should be able to take a sim out in Glimmerbrook and walk all over that place without a loading screen.
Tales From The Myst
The Blue Moon Jukebox
At this point and time I would have to say no. Open World was great for me but it going to take more than a Open World for me to stay interested in Sims 4 as there are other tools Sims 4 needs. What I really want is the tools to create my own neighborhoods, put down lots and edit the sizes, colors outside of the primary section. As I played Sims 4 over time I got tired of the same old neighborhoods and I feel EA/Maxis made a mistake cutting out all features that let me achieve what I wanted to achieve, I feel they could have given us some of the tools but that would have cut into their plan of selling Neighborhoods. If I had a choice between open world and creation tools, I would take the tools of self creation.
- Cars, motorcycles, bycicles. (Detailed animations)
- Wild Animals (Interactive)
- Thief and Celebrity (Better and more active!)
- Bands
- Farming or Medieval EP
- Cyberpunk or Asian GP
- Beach.
My sims leave their house all the time, even for a few days at a time. They go to visit some place or a festival, then they go to some restaurant or cafe to eat something, then maybe do some fun thing or chores around the house and sometimes they get a phone call to go somewhere in the evening and they go and somehow arrive home three days later. I like how the lots are set up now because this means that a reasonable amount of sims will populate the community lots when we visit, so the places feel lively. In TS3 with its open neighbourhood, the community places were always deserted with only one or maybe two sims present.
FWIW, I'd support Open Neighborhoods of 5, maybe 6 lots. But that's not going to happen either.
Yes, the worlds was closed off but there are many elements in a open world/Neighborhood other than connecting them such as travelling within a neighborhood or world w/o encountering a loading screen so for me Sims 4 is not open now and to get more technical it would be if the sim can walk into the other worlds w/o a loading screen as each neighborhood would then be seamless. Also the cars or vehicles was a enhancement of the open world/neighborhood concept in which it does not exist in Sim 4. However Sims 3 is the older version but EA/Maxis could have expanded on the open neighborhood even with the connected components but chose not to as not to mess with the performance of Sims 4 instead of tweaking the program like today where technology has evolved very quickly but Sims 4 story or path has been chosen already and that is my opinion.
I would too but EA/Maxis has froze up and chose the safe zone.
I actually wasn't even going to play 4, ever, because of the closed world. After Sims 3, I never wanted to be back on closed lots. Never wanted to see a loading screen again. I didn't have any lag or the bugs others had in Sims 3. 3 and 4 run the same on my pc. My lots always had sims on them. And I used a mod, for rotational play, so I was able to turn off story progression for my played households. P E R F E C T! But then 2 years ago when I thought Sims 5 would surely be coming soon (I believed with an open world), I started playing 4 just so I could get familiar with the updates, new UI, and changes. I thought some might transition into the next game and wanted to be ready. THEN they said, nope, not coming soon!
That all said, I will at least acknowledge that my load screens are about 3 seconds long, so that part isn't as bad as it could be. I do think some people who don't see them as a problem, might not realize others can have very long load screens. I saw someone mention several minutes in another thread, and I was like, pffft nope, no way, no how, I wouldn't play the game like that. I just couldn't. But a load screen of ANY length to visit your neighbour really messes with game immersion.
In Sims 5 I want my Open World back, AND I want to continue our ability to travel between worlds seamlessly! I don't see why that cannot happen at all.
| Picture in Picture mode | Custom Paintings | Preset scenarios for resident sims | Placing my own lots |
| Saving my own Buy Mode collections! | Saving an outfit in CAS | CaSt. Smaller is ok | Open World |