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A Comprehensive World Building Tool for Sims 4
auntielynds
Posts: 3,071 Member
I started a thread in the Sims 4 forum, "What Do You Want To See Next?" section for advocating a world building tool that is comparative to Caw. I was hoping people here could post on the thread to show the level of community interest in it.
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9673426.page
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9673426.page
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Edit: Had to verify email. Good to go
Have added my voice to the request for Sims4 CAW :thumbup:
I do hope they have something in development. Maybe Rflong will find out something at Sims Camp. Oooooo.......so jealous I'm turning green!
The Sims Creators' Consortium
EA is supposedly changed the way the worlds were being made - they were not using's Maya's World Builder plug in which CAW was made off of - something to do with the fact they could not build a Mac compatiable tool to match and had to change things or lose their contract with Apple. As they have a mac compatiable Sim City that would solve the problem.
But honestly this is only considered rumor and although it is claimed to have came from an individual who had been working on the Sims 4 - the fact he was let go from what they say last October - it is hard to say how reliable any of that info is. As I read some of his posts before they removed them at modthesims and did not see anything about maps or worlds really.
But on the other hand I do know EA could not make a Mac and PC compatiable CAW - so it is possible - maybe.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Did I just catch it as a rumor or was it officially said that we could specify things like the environment of our world in game? ie. forest, tropical, desert, etc.
I voted and commented on the thread -- I'm with you all, this is my most-wanted feature. Thank you, Auntie Lynds!
P.S. any word from Rflong yet on this stuff?
It probabaly explains why we have so many people that start worlds and half way through they forget about them or throw them out.
But I really have not seen anything regarding map making or world building and have been following 9 different twitter feeds and watch all of those builders sites.
Sorry I don't have anything useful.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
It appears that EA has this tool that was developed in house, which they called "World Builder." (BTW, over the years there have been many tools, for many games, called "World Builder." The notion that this in house tool was adapted from Maya is just ridiculous.) Probably someone at EA though that converting their in house tool for general use would not be a particularly big deal.
But the project seems to have become much bigger than originally planned. First of all, EA worlds are base game only compatible. But world builders want to add things from all EP. A base game only world building tool is not a particularly big deal. Fixing it for the release of each supplement is. It probably takes one programmer working full time just to keep it sort of up to date.
Second, EA got into the world selling business. The first effort, Barnacle Bay, was pretty lame. But their worlds have improved over time. However, they have to compete with worlds being given away for nothing and which work with all of the released EPs. It's hard to compete with free.
Plus, most of the work in world building comes from the meta-data objects which are included with world builder. For example, most of the rabbit hole buildings and meta data objects made by EA are very complex and sophisticated objects, which are far beyond the modelling skills of most sims gamers. The stuff I make is baby simple in comparison.
So to add insult to injury, world builders just take these meta data objects and pop them into their own worlds without giving it a second thought. Then they will brag on how their worlds are better than an EA world, when, in fact EA has done 90% of the heavy lifting by not only creating world builder, but in creating the meta data objects used by world builders.
In the Sims 3, EA never made a tool for clothes creation and modding. They never made a tool for object creation. These tools were eventually made by either the modding community, or third party commercial sites like TSR. At some level, EA understands that these tools are used to make items which compete against the store. And in many cases, these player made items are of a high quality, because players are not constrained by some bean counter's budget.
I think we have seen the last of CAW. In fact, I am not even expecting any further updates to the Sims 3 CAW. I think EA is done with it.
I think providing a world building program to the community make total business sense.
1. Since the content in user made worlds is reliant on owning the EA objects used in said world.
A well made Simmer world is free advertising for purchasing additional content.
Unlike store items used in Sim/lot building, world meta objects can't be opt'd out of.
2. Having world building in the community is also an idea/trending resource.
Free market research. What are people making/downloading.
3. Since CAW is free & unsupported; EA has avoided most of the actual cost & hassles associated with releasing the software.
4. I'm sure in the small print EA retains rights/ownership to anything the community builds/shares or talks about on this forum.
Offering a world building program to the community makes total sense
If EA did not want us 'competing' with their products, we wouldn't have CAW. Plain and simple. They understand the importance of having a creative outlet that is, in fact, not competing with their products. Heck, they even Feature our worlds on their website.
Now, EA did not give us an item creator, or a clothing creator, or hair designer, because those things would be competition for their dollar.
A user-made world is just a compilation of objects. Objects that EA has created and/or sold.
Agreed and I will use myself as an example. One day someone here posted a Q about a fence or something. I clicked on the thread and saw the fence. As far as I can figure that fence came with University and I think is available in CAW..
I *really really* want that fence! But I don't have Uni. I now plan on getting University because I know how cool that fence would look in some of the worlds I create. x.X
I think you are living in a dream world. I also think you are confusing your own wants and desires with what the suits in EA think will be in their own best interests.
There is no question in my mind that player made worlds have cost EA thousands of sales of their own worlds. Without CAW, players who want something other than Sunset Valley have to buy from the store. Figure that at $20 to $30 per world, each 1000 lost sales amounts to $20,000 to $30,000.
In addition, it probably is costing them at least $60,000 a year to maintain CAW. (Assuming one full time employee.) Add another $60,000 for each additional employee. That's cheap for programming talent in California.
EA really has no incentive to make world building easy or cheap for players. In fact there is good reason to believe that the Sims 4 may not be moddable at all. That is may not be CAstable should be raising alarm bells.
But time will tell.
I can play at last TS2 TS3 and TS4 So great that toddlers are here!!!
I don't think this is correct at all. Most worlds created by simmers contain stuff from expansion packs as well as store bought worlds. Unless the creator is strict with what they put into a world and lists all objects, objects you do not have will be replaced by those you have already paid for. You get no content for free that was created by EA. They made sure of this. The only thing that was free was a sculpted and painted landscape.
Plus, EA worlds come with new objects as incentives to buy them.
Someone may create Italy, but they do not have the pizza oven.
I do not think they lost out on money because of this concept. I think they lost out on money because they kept it glitchy and in Beta instead of releasing a complete tool and making people pay for it to do exactly what it's doing now, which is promote and make others buy what they do not have.
There was no hints at all about world building - only about building lots and sharing those built by others also in the gallery. So not even a tiny hint or slip of the tongue or anything - yet anyway. I sure hope that gallery is not cloud storage - but that immediately came to mind the way things pop right in instantly like that.
I seriously have to wonder how a world could be uploaded from and all that if this is all right there in the game. How else though can that be explained. This - so far is nothing like we have seen before.
What I did find out is it is not looking good for Mac users - this game is PC only. When questioned on Twitter yesterday - the Mac user asked when was the Mac version coming out - and the Guru replied well we concentrated just on the pc - as if to say there is no Mac version. So I am only guessing here but I'll bet the game itself is in the .net framework. Of course this does not answer the question about world building - and I have looked far and wide - and so far haven't found how - but it does look like CAW won't be the method - especially the way the buildings are made.
On a good note - so far have not seen rh's though. Was able to go in the places the sims went into.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I hope I'm wrong and I become instantly jealous of everyone who pre-ordered it when it comes out.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....