Thank you so much for the help last week finding the rotating tools and happy Anniversary Sims! I also can’t type happy enough for the family tree patch coming today.
Can we get smarter Sims?
Can our Sims take care of their children better?
Since the UI and loading screens are causing headaches for many Simmers, can the white color of them be changed to blue and can the icons be increased in size?
Why do the genetics seem broken since the December patch?
Can our Sims eat faster?
Why is linear game play being forced on all players and then we are punished if we don’t want to play that way like having the game kill a child for failing, unsuccessful party, or unable to move on in a career? We either have to resort to not doing those activities or mod them out.
I know this is a silly suggestion but since there is a big unicorn stuff animal in the game, would it be possible for the Sim children to scream “It’s so fluffy!” in Simlish?
If toddlers are ever added could there be an age up option for all life stages and aging up early come without a consequence for aging a toddler up early?
Will there be a forum party on the anniversary?
Can we get smarter Sims?
Can our Sims take care of their children better?
- We are always looking at Sim behavior and ways to make them more believable. If you have specific examples of behavior you'd like to see, we'd love to hear them.
Why do the genetics seem broken since the December patch?
- What part of genetics is broken? I know there was a bug fixed about constant twins, but I don't know of any other genetics trouble.
Can our Sims eat faster?
- We are looking at Sims eating, there have been a few things we've found to improve there. If you have noticed specific behavior that seems to cause the delay, it would be helpful to know. Thanks!
Why is linear game play being forced on all players and then we are punished if we don’t want to play that way like having the game kill a child for failing, unsuccessful party, or unable to move on in a career? We either have to resort to not doing those activities or mod them out.
- Our goal is to create a fun game for you to play, but also allow the game to get out of your way. Sometimes it seems like we have not found the right balance yet. We will keep looking at this.
I know this is a silly suggestion but since there is a big unicorn stuff animal in the game, would it be possible for the Sim children to scream “It’s so fluffy!” in Simlish?
- What do you think that Simlish would be?
Hi and happy eve Sims Anniversary.
Basically like everyday tasks. The AI of the Sims seems lower to then the Sims 1. I just would like my Sims to be able to take care of their everyday needs and their child's everyday needs without having to control them sometimes. The Sims are horrible parents in that they lets their babies cry for hours and would rather be on their phone or computer then feed their baby.
I have a family of Smurfs, so whenever they have kids none of them come out with blue eyes or blue skin. Another person in the family thread is also having the issue with her ugly Sim couple. The kids just don't look like their parents.
When they eat, they just stare into space with a blank expression. It's really creepy.
I hope sandbox game play returns.
I sadly don't speak Simlish, so I have no idea what the Simlish version of that would be.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Hello SimGurus! Thanks for the awesome update! ^.^
I have some suggestions for you:
- Please add memory moodlets (such as childhood memories etc.), they would bring realism to the game in my opinion ^.^
- I want more neighborhoods and worlds for my Sims to live in! Also world editing tools are welcome!
- Could you please give us more creativity features? Such as something like a Color Wheel for Create a Sim and for some sections of the build mode
- I hope that you can change the population 180 Sims limit to higher value in the future. The way the game is culling Sims is not that good thing.
- More floors for houses (5-7 for example!) please!
- Could you add more interactions and objects for babies? Like pacifiers, baby swings, more eye colors, different clothes (and diapers!!!) for them etc.
Only a small thing, but will there be an update that allows you to build a friendship at work/school when choosing the "Chat with Co-workers / Make Friends" option? This would make it so much easier to increase the social need, make new friends and it sort of seems logical as it was the case in The Sims 3.
Good morning Gurus. I wanted to start out by saying thank for showing that you are listening to the community by adding family trees into the game and I'm so glad to have seen a few of you around the forums lately. Please continue to interact with us and listen to our suggestions. I'm personaly grateful.
Now for my questions.
I was talking with @blueasbutterfly the other day about traits and we both had a topic we were interested to hear more about.
Why are traits in cas limited to three (besides the bonus trait)? There was talk that having any more traits would result in sims "acting strangely". Strange in what way? What are some interesting bugs you came across while testing traits? Also, why do traits bought with Aspirations points seem to work and adding more cas traits will not?
I just thought of a few more questions; Why can't we select more "family tags" in cas? Like cousin, bf/gf, and step-sibling? (right now it's limited to wife/husband, sister/brother, daughter/son, mother/father)
Is it possible to add a "normal" walk for elders? Right now the default walk for elders is to slouch and while some older people in real life (young as well) may walk with poor posture, not all old people walk that way and it would be nice to have a walk that was like the other life stages (even if it wasn't the "default"). You don't have to answer this question if you are unable but, please consider it. Sometimes I find the bad posture with elders in this game a bit off putting and have to use more "dramatic" styles just as "feminine".
Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide for this topic.
We decided to focus on 3 personality traits so that each one's impact could be more visible. We actually put more gameplay impact into the TS4 traits and it's true, when we played with 5 we often found Sims doing unpredictable things. It created an interesting side effect where you actually lost some of the uniqueness between characters - when trying to behave according to all 5 traits it actually watered them down a bit. So why do the reward traits work? They are very very targeted & specific. Not needing to sleep as much doesn't manifest in the way being a hot-head does for example.
The game is actually much more intelligent when it comes to tracking & setting character relationships than CAS. A Sim in CAS isn't a full Sim yet (at least as far as their data is concerned) so it's a little more complicated to set up some of the more temporary or nuanced relationships in that data. Not impossible but not as straightforward as sister/brother for example. We're always looking at improvements though.
Good feedback on the walks - thanks for the input.
Oh my. There have been a lot of ideas over the years! I know we recently added lacy underwear because we were looking at content created by fans and saw a lot of interest in lace.
I'm a Game Designer on The Sims. I started working with Maxis on The Sims 2.
I have at least 5 sets of Sims Trophy figures and keep digging up time capsules with more. Is there any way to have them filled with something else after that collection has been completed?
Well, they are worth Simoleons, so you could sell some of your copies for a nice side income. Thanks for letting us know you'd like something new there.
I'm a Game Designer on The Sims. I started working with Maxis on The Sims 2.
One more thing, I'm sorry to ask twice, but can you guys please add the ability to change the last name of sims when they get married?
Also will you do anything about the skills of children not passing over when they age up?
Thanks again
One more thing, I'm sorry to ask twice, but can you guys please add the ability to change the last name of sims when they get married?
- We are absolutely looking into this.
Also will you do anything about the skills of children not passing over when they age up?
- Maxing child skills allows you to get a head start on some adult skills, but completing child aspirations (which require child skills) give you rewards that affect how you learn as an adult. Try working on those aspirations.
I'm a Game Designer on The Sims. I started working with Maxis on The Sims 2.
first thanks for the fixes i hope we get all bugs fixed soon, congrats for the 15 aniversary and i hope see more of this
now for what i want
i posted this: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/13262574/#Comment_13262574
well summarizing i want hear from a guru, they personnal toughts toward this feature, you really feel with open world does not fit in the sims game, that feature in the sims 3 was really bad, i'm really tired to hear from others simmers which open world is trash, which dont work, who never we gonna see this in the sims 4 and all bla bla bla i want a honest tought toward i, if your team is really talking about it, discussing about if is possible add back or no if indeed without offend is really to expensive or hard, because for me and a lot of players open world means immersion which is what the game lack with that big amount of load screens everywhere, the sims 3 was a great step for improve the game i feel bad too see that conception being throwed away because of bugs which never get fixed, what peoples wanted was just a improviment toward it. i'm not asking for dates or things like that i just want hear from dev they toughts toward it, how hard was and how hard still and what you are thing about it
is possible to have sims playing by themselfs, many peoples actually like to watch, maybe can be good you try to make a little "team to just focus on the sims AI
currently they can virtually do anything which peoples are asking in the story progression, they can have babies, can move* to others families can break all we need is have the right adjusts and a team dedicated to it, then this could lead to a really awesome storyprogression like sims 3 (but also will need a open world)had with nrass, all is needed have peoples dedicated to do that.
*could be possible to allow npcs sims move out without a load screen, i see a guy made a mod where the option to move is enabled for autonomous sims however when a npc autonomous move, this make the game change the current played sim to that sim, could be interesting if possible to change to make load screen come only if the current played sim, if this happen with a nonplayed then will be a automatic action without load screen.
3 about the current storyprogression - we can have really real changes here, because really the current storyprogression is not working or working completly different from what we wanted, that culling sims is not what we wanted, we wanted a storyprogression where instead of keep random generating and delet sims we wanted see families progressing have childrens progressing in work, they childrens grow have work, have romance and things like that, this current culling, making everyone cheating, and the 180 limit is really annoying we can see changes here?
4 - and again about relationship i asked a long time and a guru answer which they will look then i just want to remember if possible, allow romance between cousins(only with players you can make the autonomous not being able to do only the player), afar i know this sort of relationship is legal even in usa and for some storytelle i feel incomplet without it for a great family drama, and when we have a teen couple if one age first to young adult, possible to continue the romance instead of get reseted is really sad see a relationship get broken because of the age
5 - about the current size of the world if we can see that cities "grow a little more", because currently they look more like villages than cities.
6 - about the 32bit thing we can hope see this game being updated to 64 bits in future???
7 - add arcades and lanhouse lots, for teen and childs and bring back consoles for my sims can play in pair too not just alone and aways being of pc, we need the classic back i want to have my sims being able to play together
and really thanks for finally looks like you are learning and finally stop all the "silence in forum" that was really bad, have everything happening only in twitter and fb and here we looking like forget peoples, because 180 characters is more easy to work >.>.
wow - let's break this down...
the World - Both TS3 and TS4 have pros & cons in the how the world is crafted. Some matter more or less to different players. What is important to me is how we create interesting opportunities, gameplay and as you say immersion in the world we do have. We want to take the advantages TS4 has technically and really bolster those - blast the out to feel awesome. The design goal is to make the world meaningful, immersive & interesting for you.
I think you are perhaps misunderstanding our stance on "smart Sims". We totally want the Sims to be believable, reasonable and not do ridiculous things (unless they are hilarious!). We don't have a switch behind the scenes here that says "make them dumber on/off". The balance is in making sure that you, as a player, still have a role to play in helping them be successful (or tormenting them if that's what you like to do). Smart Sims is a core pillar for us, something we talk about all the time. We literally have spreadsheets tracking it. Creating a completely natural, believable, intelligent, flexible and meaningful "intelligence" that works perfectly and predictably to every player' expectation 100% of the time is SUPER difficult. We are constantly working on this and iterating on it. The core point though - we believe in smart too.
We're looking at more ways to enhance that intelligence I spoke up and expand it beyond the Sim you are controlling just at this moment.
Not sure what mod you are referring to - I'll look into it.
Story progression means a lot of different things, it is actually a term that encompasses quite a few systems from TS3. We understand the ask for more "continuity" to the stories of your neighbors and making them more real. We're looking into it!
We haven't changed anything about cousins yet - but it doesn't mean we won't consider it someday.
We know you are all interested in more world space.
I don't know anything about 32 v. 64 bits, I'd have to ask. sorry!
thanks for the content suggestions.
We haven't not been intentionally "silent on the forums". You outnumber us by a lot and we can't be everywhere as much as that would be lovely. We are trying to be present as much as we can so thank you for noticing. We're always here working even if we aren't stalking you on the forums all the time.
Hello SimGurus! Thanks for the awesome update! ^.^
I have some suggestions for you:
- Please add memory moodlets (such as childhood memories etc.), they would bring realism to the game in my opinion ^.^
- I want more neighborhoods and worlds for my Sims to live in! Also world editing tools are welcome!
- Could you please give us more creativity features? Such as something like a Color Wheel for Create a Sim and for some sections of the build mode
- I hope that you can change the population 180 Sims limit to higher value in the future. The way the game is culling Sims is not that good thing.
- More floors for houses (5-7 for example!) please!
- Could you add more interactions and objects for babies? Like pacifiers, baby swings, more eye colors, different clothes (and diapers!!!) for them etc.
Thanks for your hard work!
-ULIBABA66
Thanks for the feedback - we're always looking for ways to bring in more believable stuff from real life. We know you would like more space and more editing. We're always looking for new ways to enable creativity! I think culling gets a bit of a bad rap personally - I completely understand that you do not want your Sims culled and we want to make sure we preserve your families, histories etc. However, the reason it exists at all can actually a very helpful one - culling (when done delicately & targetedly) lets us keep your game running smoothly! It can cause issues to store data for every Sim that ever randomly pops into the world, even if just for a second. I just wanted to correct the mislabeling of culling as "not a good thing" because it actually can be OK.
I'll talk to the team about more floors & baby stuff.
Only a small thing, but will there be an update that allows you to build a friendship at work/school when choosing the "Chat with Co-workers / Make Friends" option? This would make it so much easier to increase the social need, make new friends and it sort of seems logical as it was the case in The Sims 3.
I have a quick question on Parties & guest attendees. In regards to possible guest attendees, I noticed that the person planning the social event only sees the people they know. Which makes parties sort of limited as you can't invite people your other family members know. Is this is bug/glitch or is it supposed to be setup this way? In other Sims games it was who the 'household' knew. I was just curious.
Thanks
It's not a bug, but it is something we could look into changing. Once the party is started, you can have your other Sims invite their friends over to join it.
I'm a Game Designer on The Sims. I started working with Maxis on The Sims 2.
another thing i forget, could be possible add a option for birthday events to "not age sims", when you use the cake during a birthday event the automatic age can be turned off and the sim can blow off the candle without age?? for we can have a better freedom and be able to make more birthday partys?? i love make birthdays party but i feel restricted because i can only celebrate one time per life stage of a sim and few which for roleplay could be fun celebrate when the sims reach half of his current life stage or any other moment like if a sim have a total of 80 days then i can make a party when he is at 40 or 30 and he not age but can be cool, any possibility toward it?.
another thing a way to not only rotate houses but the full lote when you add a house from the galery, most houses come with a specific direction look and turn then is a little painfull because currently you can only rotate what is "inside the house" the garden party no, then some houses come with a garden and fences made to look to a specific side and you can only rotate the house and need manually turn the garden and fences could be coll a way to rotate everything(also garden part).
Birthday Parties without aging is a good idea. We'll try to look into what we can do there.
We're looking into lot rotation options. Thanks!
I'm a Game Designer on The Sims. I started working with Maxis on The Sims 2.
Ok, folks, sorry about that but we were all in a meeting to review a fabulous video that we will be unveiling next week. Shhhh, don't tell anyone but it will be "medical" in nature
Anyway, we are now open for questions. It will be a short session this week with me and @SimGuruLyndsay, so please keep your questions focused so we can get to answer as many as possible.
Thank you.
SimGuruBChick Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations
Thanks to 06bon06 for my lovely new signature pic
Hey, Thanks for having the time to chat with us gurus! :)
Three I have three questions. In GTW you have since you can choose the Businesses careers I was wondering can you choose you own custom outfits for employees like in Sims 3 showtime where like you could choose any outfit to wear to work? I would hope you can do that? I hope that you can do this to all careers in the future one day.
Speaking if Retail and business side of GTW I hope you do a Create a world tool one day too where you can have lots of Shopping Districts!? Imagine worlds created by Talented people from the Sims 3 like @Rflong7 and more to come create custom districts and more in the Sims 4.
Finally I have a Problem/bug in offline mode where I can't see any CC item that I made in the Gallery but when I go on Online mode I can see the Advanced tag and my Sims that I Saved using CC items!
First of all, I want to thank all of you SimGurus for your great work and what I really appreciate is that you take the time to actually seek contact with us. It’s really good to have you guys around! :)
What I want to focus on here is improvement, since nobody will give us any spoilers anyways :P haha.
I read on several fan sites that they received a survey on upcoming expansions from TS4, while I find this a really nice idea I would even more appreciate a survey in which all of us can participate – which, from my point of view at least, would be a win/win situation anyways. But besides that, I really do hope that you guys take some time to look over the requests in the forum, as there are some brilliant ideas out there :) I myself, for example, just earlier today commented in one of those topics and gave a few suggestions which I would really enjoy seeing in the game. These suggestions were just from the top of my head, so there could be a lot more coming :P Since I can’t post any links due to being a new member, the thread is called “Expansion Pack Ideas” and can be found in the Ideas corner. My post is the 8th ;) :P
Also, although generally the EP’s from TS2 were a lot nicer than from TS3 (It seemed to me that in TS3 the profits where put before quality… :/ ), BUT I really did LOVE the horses in TS3 Pets. I really do hope for their return, hopefully with even more details and along other new pets.
You must have heard this a lot, but I really miss all the small loving details from TS2. It feels to me like TS2 was made to impress with all these fine details, but TS3 + 4 where shortened to be cut the release date, which is rather disappointing. If it weren’t for the graphics I would probably still be stuck in TS2 :P heehee.
I was so excited about the new emotions in TS4, I was going crazy over it ever since it was announced. But the end result was a little disappointing. These emotions just seem so forced and staged, it doesn’t seem natural. I also imagined them to be more intense, like with unique animations/reactions to things depending on the mood and it influencing the story.
Also, I really hope my Sims will get to experience some different cultures in the future. As someone who lived in the Middle East for two years, I really got to appreciate the cultural diversity of this planet, it has enriched my life so much – and there is so much to learn from other cultures! I wish my Sims could have such experiences as well :) Plus, I noticed while looking at custom content that many of these CC creators are from Turkey and Tunisia, so I guess there would be many people who would enjoy some touches of different cultures :) I also imagine it would be fun for the developers to look in ;) hehee.
Now I would like to change the topic a little and talk about The Sims Medieval, and a possible return of it. I know, this is supposed to be about The Sims 4, but I already wrote about it in the official EA/Sims Medieval forum before which is completely abandoned, so yeah, nobody is going to see that there anyways ;) Well, like you can read in one of the points in my comment in the above link, I really did enjoy The Sims Medieval and was pretty sad when it just got abandoned. Now I do realize that in the eyes of EA the game wasn’t a success, but to be quite frank, it wasn’t because of the idea, it was about the way they decided to make the game. The medieval age is probably one of the most popular themes/topics in the entire entertainment industry, and to combine that with the Sims gameplay experience would simply be brilliant. But the problem was that The Sims Medieval failed to provide the The Sims gameplay experience. There was barely anything to customise, we couldn’t even change buildings and we didn’t have much to do with the Sims except doing a handful of quests which always just repeated themselves with every new game. I really did like the quests, and especially the humour in them, but there need to be MANY, MANY more in order to provide a good game experience – and there needs to be the ability to do something with the sims’ life outside of quests. I mean come on, it wasn’t even possible to create a proper family :/ New quests could easily be added with game patches as well :) The different levels (or achievements, or whatever they were) didn’t really make any sense. At first I thought they would all offer a different kingdom, which would have been amazing, but it turned out it was just the same thing over and over again, the only difference was a different goal ambition. If there isn’t any major difference in all these stages it would make so much more sense to just create a kingdom at the start and then be able to select different ambitions with time (like with the sims’ aspirations in TS4), and being able to run many different games to play out all kinds of kingdoms our imagination desires. With these levels it was rather frustrating, and you were suddenly “done” with the kingdom. Now… Imagine a Medieval Sims where you can just start as many games as you want with different aspirations, build the sims’ homes and community lots the way you would like them to be (the castle, for example) provide a classic sims gameplay with all the regular sims features PLUS the ability to do (MANY different) quests, bringing an authentic medieval feeling to the game (which actually wasn’t even so bad in that one), and publishing relevant add ons, not one with two rival guilds which bring like 3 additional quests to the game…This would be amazing and the possibilities are nearly endless. Like I say in the other post, I would have enjoyed having my Sims ride on horses through the kingdom instead of just walk, especially the monarch. The monarch should also have actual power to rule over the kingdom, not only sending individuals to the beast. ;) The monarch could influence the prosperity of the kingdom for example, with laws and decisions. It would be nice to have horses and maybe even carriages to ride, dragons and other things. I really liked the pit monster! lol It would be also nice to include other kingdoms a little more as well and the political decisions that follow them. Maybe we could even go to war with them and take them over, or arrange a marriage between two kingdoms to combine them? I know that you guys probably not really have a say in this, but I would really wish for a better medieval sims. I really loved the idea behind it, everybody I know did, we wished so many times to be able to program our own games to make a game just like The Sims Medieval but better :)
I also really want to give you guys a HUGE thumbs up for the CAS and build mode in TS4 – it’s amazing! :) Now I really hope for bigger lots to be able to build dream houses a little larger ;) In TS3, I always used the biggest lot size, even though my Sims (and especially pets!!) often got lost in it :P haha
Last, and final, I do hope that the patches with added features do continue. To be honest, I was extremely surprised about this at first, since I had the opinion from TS3 that EA is just about money. These patches really helped lighten up the grump in my tummy :P haha and many others do feel the same. So I guess it’s not only a nice thing for us but also good for EA’s public relations.
Now thank you everyone, I really do hope you get to read my comment and I want to especially thank you for taking the time to do so. I always wish to be able to help improving the games I love and give ideas, this thread makes me feel like, maybe, I actually can :)
2. Are the new profile images an indication of increased focus and resources being allocated toward The Sims franchise?
3. The Simulation Tech Talk thread was one of the best things to come out of your increased forum presence, thanks largely to @SimGuruMax and also @SimGuruMeatball and @SimGuruHouts. Can you start something up like that again? For other areas of interest as well?
4. If not, would you consider doing something like @Anavastia suggested in her thread on Educational Advertising. More departments doing something like the art department did with the Eary Concept Art for simulation, music, voices, making movies, programming, building worlds, and gameplay design.
5. Can you give an estimate of the retention rates for The Sims 4, i.e. what percentage have played another iteration of the game?
6. How far in advance of release do you start working on an EP?
9. Since you asked for it, I take it you monitored feedback from players who took advantage of the free 48-hour trial of The Sims 4. How has the feedback differed from that of players who had already bought or tried the game?
10. Has player reaction overall been what you expected?
11. The thread asking, “What Can We Do to Make Your The Sims 4 Worlds the Best Ever” was closed very shortly after opening and has remained stickied, but locked for months. Is this an indication that you have abandoned trying to significantly change how The Sims 4 worlds function?
12. So, I see the upcoming EP is to include police. Can we also expect to see a fire service and handyman service anytime soon? I was hoping that with the higher tax rates in the new game the municipalities would have enough funds for some basic civil services.
13. Congratulations on your 15 year anniversary! Are there any other EA games other than Madden and FIFA that have been running longer?
is there a time frame for fixing some the small features: Cleaning frenzy= they just stand there / Sims not being played develop all kinds of romantic relationships even when they are in a relationship or married (they all seem to be cheaters, when I'm not looking) / name change still not working / game freezes for a few seconds but the game clock keeps moving ?
Comments
Basically like everyday tasks. The AI of the Sims seems lower to then the Sims 1. I just would like my Sims to be able to take care of their everyday needs and their child's everyday needs without having to control them sometimes. The Sims are horrible parents in that they lets their babies cry for hours and would rather be on their phone or computer then feed their baby.
I have a family of Smurfs, so whenever they have kids none of them come out with blue eyes or blue skin. Another person in the family thread is also having the issue with her ugly Sim couple. The kids just don't look like their parents.
When they eat, they just stare into space with a blank expression. It's really creepy.
I hope sandbox game play returns.
I sadly don't speak Simlish, so I have no idea what the Simlish version of that would be.
I have some suggestions for you:
- Please add memory moodlets (such as childhood memories etc.), they would bring realism to the game in my opinion ^.^
- I want more neighborhoods and worlds for my Sims to live in! Also world editing tools are welcome!
- Could you please give us more creativity features? Such as something like a Color Wheel for Create a Sim and for some sections of the build mode
- I hope that you can change the population 180 Sims limit to higher value in the future. The way the game is culling Sims is not that good thing.
- More floors for houses (5-7 for example!) please!
- Could you add more interactions and objects for babies? Like pacifiers, baby swings, more eye colors, different clothes (and diapers!!!) for them etc.
Thanks for your hard work!
-ULIBABA66
I would like to ask you if it would be possible for when a couple has a baby their child could have a blend of the two hair colours?
e.g Dark brown + blonde = light brown
We decided to focus on 3 personality traits so that each one's impact could be more visible. We actually put more gameplay impact into the TS4 traits and it's true, when we played with 5 we often found Sims doing unpredictable things. It created an interesting side effect where you actually lost some of the uniqueness between characters - when trying to behave according to all 5 traits it actually watered them down a bit. So why do the reward traits work? They are very very targeted & specific. Not needing to sleep as much doesn't manifest in the way being a hot-head does for example.
The game is actually much more intelligent when it comes to tracking & setting character relationships than CAS. A Sim in CAS isn't a full Sim yet (at least as far as their data is concerned) so it's a little more complicated to set up some of the more temporary or nuanced relationships in that data. Not impossible but not as straightforward as sister/brother for example. We're always looking at improvements though.
Good feedback on the walks - thanks for the input.
Oh my. There have been a lot of ideas over the years! I know we recently added lacy underwear because we were looking at content created by fans and saw a lot of interest in lace.
We'll take a look. Thank you!
Well, they are worth Simoleons, so you could sell some of your copies for a nice side income. Thanks for letting us know you'd like something new there.
One more thing, I'm sorry to ask twice, but can you guys please add the ability to change the last name of sims when they get married?
- We are absolutely looking into this.
Also will you do anything about the skills of children not passing over when they age up?
- Maxing child skills allows you to get a head start on some adult skills, but completing child aspirations (which require child skills) give you rewards that affect how you learn as an adult. Try working on those aspirations.
wow - let's break this down...
the World - Both TS3 and TS4 have pros & cons in the how the world is crafted. Some matter more or less to different players. What is important to me is how we create interesting opportunities, gameplay and as you say immersion in the world we do have. We want to take the advantages TS4 has technically and really bolster those - blast the out to feel awesome. The design goal is to make the world meaningful, immersive & interesting for you.
I think you are perhaps misunderstanding our stance on "smart Sims". We totally want the Sims to be believable, reasonable and not do ridiculous things (unless they are hilarious!). We don't have a switch behind the scenes here that says "make them dumber on/off". The balance is in making sure that you, as a player, still have a role to play in helping them be successful (or tormenting them if that's what you like to do). Smart Sims is a core pillar for us, something we talk about all the time. We literally have spreadsheets tracking it. Creating a completely natural, believable, intelligent, flexible and meaningful "intelligence" that works perfectly and predictably to every player' expectation 100% of the time is SUPER difficult. We are constantly working on this and iterating on it. The core point though - we believe in smart too.
We're looking at more ways to enhance that intelligence I spoke up and expand it beyond the Sim you are controlling just at this moment.
Not sure what mod you are referring to - I'll look into it.
Story progression means a lot of different things, it is actually a term that encompasses quite a few systems from TS3. We understand the ask for more "continuity" to the stories of your neighbors and making them more real. We're looking into it!
We haven't changed anything about cousins yet - but it doesn't mean we won't consider it someday.
We know you are all interested in more world space.
I don't know anything about 32 v. 64 bits, I'd have to ask. sorry!
thanks for the content suggestions.
We haven't not been intentionally "silent on the forums". You outnumber us by a lot and we can't be everywhere as much as that would be lovely. We are trying to be present as much as we can so thank you for noticing. We're always here working even if we aren't stalking you on the forums all the time.
Thanks for the feedback - we're always looking for ways to bring in more believable stuff from real life. We know you would like more space and more editing. We're always looking for new ways to enable creativity! I think culling gets a bit of a bad rap personally - I completely understand that you do not want your Sims culled and we want to make sure we preserve your families, histories etc. However, the reason it exists at all can actually a very helpful one - culling (when done delicately & targetedly) lets us keep your game running smoothly! It can cause issues to store data for every Sim that ever randomly pops into the world, even if just for a second. I just wanted to correct the mislabeling of culling as "not a good thing" because it actually can be OK.
I'll talk to the team about more floors & baby stuff.
thanks!
Interesting idea - I'll talk to the team! Thanks!
It's not a bug, but it is something we could look into changing. Once the party is started, you can have your other Sims invite their friends over to join it.
Birthday Parties without aging is a good idea. We'll try to look into what we can do there.
We're looking into lot rotation options. Thanks!
We always aim for kids to look like their parents, so these details could be things we can look into. Thanks!
Anyway, we are now open for questions. It will be a short session this week with me and @SimGuruLyndsay, so please keep your questions focused so we can get to answer as many as possible.
Thank you.
Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations
Thanks to 06bon06 for my lovely new signature pic
Three I have three questions. In GTW you have since you can choose the Businesses careers I was wondering can you choose you own custom outfits for employees like in Sims 3 showtime where like you could choose any outfit to wear to work? I would hope you can do that? I hope that you can do this to all careers in the future one day.
Speaking if Retail and business side of GTW I hope you do a Create a world tool one day too where you can have lots of Shopping Districts!? Imagine worlds created by Talented people from the Sims 3 like @Rflong7 and more to come create custom districts and more in the Sims 4.
Finally I have a Problem/bug in offline mode where I can't see any CC item that I made in the Gallery but when I go on Online mode I can see the Advanced tag and my Sims that I Saved using CC items!
And Happy 15 you guys!! :smile:
Could there be a game pack revolving around flamingos and gnomes and lawn ornaments with a secret world in which gnomes can kill a Sim?
Any plans of making babies not tied to objects?
Why do my Sims actions keep canceling whenever I try to tell them to do something?
What will the aliens be like in the first EP?
Can land line telephones and newspapers return for elders and Sims that want to be technophobes?
Anyway of adding options to change the color of the UI and loading screens for the Sims 4 so headaches are less?
First of all, I want to thank all of you SimGurus for your great work and what I really appreciate is that you take the time to actually seek contact with us. It’s really good to have you guys around! :)
What I want to focus on here is improvement, since nobody will give us any spoilers anyways :P haha.
I read on several fan sites that they received a survey on upcoming expansions from TS4, while I find this a really nice idea I would even more appreciate a survey in which all of us can participate – which, from my point of view at least, would be a win/win situation anyways. But besides that, I really do hope that you guys take some time to look over the requests in the forum, as there are some brilliant ideas out there :) I myself, for example, just earlier today commented in one of those topics and gave a few suggestions which I would really enjoy seeing in the game. These suggestions were just from the top of my head, so there could be a lot more coming :P
Since I can’t post any links due to being a new member, the thread is called “Expansion Pack Ideas” and can be found in the Ideas corner. My post is the 8th ;) :P
Also, although generally the EP’s from TS2 were a lot nicer than from TS3 (It seemed to me that in TS3 the profits where put before quality… :/ ), BUT I really did LOVE the horses in TS3 Pets. I really do hope for their return, hopefully with even more details and along other new pets.
You must have heard this a lot, but I really miss all the small loving details from TS2. It feels to me like TS2 was made to impress with all these fine details, but TS3 + 4 where shortened to be cut the release date, which is rather disappointing. If it weren’t for the graphics I would probably still be stuck in TS2 :P heehee.
I was so excited about the new emotions in TS4, I was going crazy over it ever since it was announced. But the end result was a little disappointing. These emotions just seem so forced and staged, it doesn’t seem natural. I also imagined them to be more intense, like with unique animations/reactions to things depending on the mood and it influencing the story.
Also, I really hope my Sims will get to experience some different cultures in the future. As someone who lived in the Middle East for two years, I really got to appreciate the cultural diversity of this planet, it has enriched my life so much – and there is so much to learn from other cultures! I wish my Sims could have such experiences as well :) Plus, I noticed while looking at custom content that many of these CC creators are from Turkey and Tunisia, so I guess there would be many people who would enjoy some touches of different cultures :) I also imagine it would be fun for the developers to look in ;) hehee.
Now I would like to change the topic a little and talk about The Sims Medieval, and a possible return of it. I know, this is supposed to be about The Sims 4, but I already wrote about it in the official EA/Sims Medieval forum before which is completely abandoned, so yeah, nobody is going to see that there anyways ;) Well, like you can read in one of the points in my comment in the above link, I really did enjoy The Sims Medieval and was pretty sad when it just got abandoned. Now I do realize that in the eyes of EA the game wasn’t a success, but to be quite frank, it wasn’t because of the idea, it was about the way they decided to make the game. The medieval age is probably one of the most popular themes/topics in the entire entertainment industry, and to combine that with the Sims gameplay experience would simply be brilliant. But the problem was that The Sims Medieval failed to provide the The Sims gameplay experience. There was barely anything to customise, we couldn’t even change buildings and we didn’t have much to do with the Sims except doing a handful of quests which always just repeated themselves with every new game. I really did like the quests, and especially the humour in them, but there need to be MANY, MANY more in order to provide a good game experience – and there needs to be the ability to do something with the sims’ life outside of quests. I mean come on, it wasn’t even possible to create a proper family :/ New quests could easily be added with game patches as well :) The different levels (or achievements, or whatever they were) didn’t really make any sense. At first I thought they would all offer a different kingdom, which would have been amazing, but it turned out it was just the same thing over and over again, the only difference was a different goal ambition. If there isn’t any major difference in all these stages it would make so much more sense to just create a kingdom at the start and then be able to select different ambitions with time (like with the sims’ aspirations in TS4), and being able to run many different games to play out all kinds of kingdoms our imagination desires. With these levels it was rather frustrating, and you were suddenly “done” with the kingdom. Now… Imagine a Medieval Sims where you can just start as many games as you want with different aspirations, build the sims’ homes and community lots the way you would like them to be (the castle, for example) provide a classic sims gameplay with all the regular sims features PLUS the ability to do (MANY different) quests, bringing an authentic medieval feeling to the game (which actually wasn’t even so bad in that one), and publishing relevant add ons, not one with two rival guilds which bring like 3 additional quests to the game…This would be amazing and the possibilities are nearly endless. Like I say in the other post, I would have enjoyed having my Sims ride on horses through the kingdom instead of just walk, especially the monarch. The monarch should also have actual power to rule over the kingdom, not only sending individuals to the beast. ;) The monarch could influence the prosperity of the kingdom for example, with laws and decisions. It would be nice to have horses and maybe even carriages to ride, dragons and other things. I really liked the pit monster! lol It would be also nice to include other kingdoms a little more as well and the political decisions that follow them. Maybe we could even go to war with them and take them over, or arrange a marriage between two kingdoms to combine them? I know that you guys probably not really have a say in this, but I would really wish for a better medieval sims. I really loved the idea behind it, everybody I know did, we wished so many times to be able to program our own games to make a game just like The Sims Medieval but better :)
I also really want to give you guys a HUGE thumbs up for the CAS and build mode in TS4 – it’s amazing! :) Now I really hope for bigger lots to be able to build dream houses a little larger ;) In TS3, I always used the biggest lot size, even though my Sims (and especially pets!!) often got lost in it :P haha
Last, and final, I do hope that the patches with added features do continue. To be honest, I was extremely surprised about this at first, since I had the opinion from TS3 that EA is just about money. These patches really helped lighten up the grump in my tummy :P haha and many others do feel the same. So I guess it’s not only a nice thing for us but also good for EA’s public relations.
Now thank you everyone, I really do hope you get to read my comment and I want to especially thank you for taking the time to do so. I always wish to be able to help improving the games I love and give ideas, this thread makes me feel like, maybe, I actually can :)
Ok, how do the new neighborhoods in GTW work? Are they going to show up on the map?
Are there going to be business stars?
Are there escalators being added?
How will time work and/or sim control and switching in the pack while sims are at work?
Do aliens have special powers?
How does the clothing stores and manequins work?
Alien abduction is in the pack?
Real estate is being added?
Thanks
2. Are the new profile images an indication of increased focus and resources being allocated toward The Sims franchise?
3. The Simulation Tech Talk thread was one of the best things to come out of your increased forum presence, thanks largely to @SimGuruMax and also @SimGuruMeatball and @SimGuruHouts. Can you start something up like that again? For other areas of interest as well?
4. If not, would you consider doing something like @Anavastia suggested in her thread on Educational Advertising. More departments doing something like the art department did with the Eary Concept Art for simulation, music, voices, making movies, programming, building worlds, and gameplay design.
5. Can you give an estimate of the retention rates for The Sims 4, i.e. what percentage have played another iteration of the game?
6. How far in advance of release do you start working on an EP?
7. Can you tell us anymore about the Friday Woohoo Surprise alluded to earlier?
8. Is there still a Sims 4 Premium Service in the works?
9. Since you asked for it, I take it you monitored feedback from players who took advantage of the free 48-hour trial of The Sims 4. How has the feedback differed from that of players who had already bought or tried the game?
10. Has player reaction overall been what you expected?
11. The thread asking, “What Can We Do to Make Your The Sims 4 Worlds the Best Ever” was closed very shortly after opening and has remained stickied, but locked for months. Is this an indication that you have abandoned trying to significantly change how The Sims 4 worlds function?
12. So, I see the upcoming EP is to include police. Can we also expect to see a fire service and handyman service anytime soon? I was hoping that with the higher tax rates in the new game the municipalities would have enough funds for some basic civil services.
13. Congratulations on your 15 year anniversary! Are there any other EA games other than Madden and FIFA that have been running longer?