last week i bought all 3 of those TS2 Stories
back then around 2005, as i played TS2 i never even considered it to buy those Stories, because those were "not really" The Sims games but some tiny laptop versions, but now with that TS4 mess i decided to dive deeper into the things i missed through the years
& i installed now Castaway Stories yesterday & it's so much fun
at first i was flustered that it was only 800x600 resolution but managed now to change that to my regular 1920x1080 - & so it's now just a blast
& additionally i ordered also TS3 Seasons
that's what is still waiting to be played by me
& several days ago as i had problems with my GPU i installed TS1 on my old computer & played that again - what an experience & how hard that game really was, so little money, so hard to gain friends & just stuck on this one lot - really tough game it was
so yeah - TS4 looses if compared to its predecessors, unfortunately, despite all its nice looks, it's just not enough
i learned to appreciate the previous versions because TS4 is such a mess if it comes to interactions & the bugs, all those bugs
Just be warned about Castaways: There are no new lots, so there's no place for you to put "survivors". I don't know what bright and shining light didn't think to add empty lots. I have Life Stories, but haven't really wanted to play it in awhile.
How is Castaway Stories anyway? I got Sims 2 Castaway for a PS2 emulator and can say I missed that game. Is Castaway Stories similar or?.... Worse?
It was fun when I first played it. But once my sim made it to marry one of the tribe people he kept being nasty to her. He fell out of love with my sim many times. I think I stil have it but out of all the sims I have played ts2 was my favorite. Then ts3, ts1 and ts4. Maybe if I had more to do other than go to work and come home. I loved having to make friends in order to get promotions. Now my sims don't have to talk to any one unless I make them greet the person first.
last week i bought all 3 of those TS2 Stories
back then around 2005, as i played TS2 i never even considered it to buy those Stories, because those were "not really" The Sims games but some tiny laptop versions, but now with that TS4 mess i decided to dive deeper into the things i missed through the years
& i installed now Castaway Stories yesterday & it's so much fun
at first i was flustered that it was only 800x600 resolution but managed now to change that to my regular 1920x1080 - & so it's now just a blast
& additionally i ordered also TS3 Seasons
that's what is still waiting to be played by me
& several days ago as i had problems with my GPU i installed TS1 on my old computer & played that again - what an experience & how hard that game really was, so little money, so hard to gain friends & just stuck on this one lot - really tough game it was
so yeah - TS4 looses if compared to its predecessors, unfortunately, despite all its nice looks, it's just not enough
i learned to appreciate the previous versions because TS4 is such a mess if it comes to interactions & the bugs, all those bugs
Just be warned about Castaways: There are no new lots, so there's no place for you to put "survivors". I don't know what bright and shining light didn't think to add empty lots. I have Life Stories, but haven't really wanted to play it in awhile.
How is Castaway Stories anyway? I got Sims 2 Castaway for a PS2 emulator and can say I missed that game. Is Castaway Stories similar or?.... Worse?
It was fun when I first played it. But once my sim made it to marry one of the tribe people he kept being nasty to her. He fell out of love with my sim many times. I think I stil have it but out of all the sims I have played ts2 was my favorite. Then ts3, ts1 and ts4. Maybe if I had more to do other than go to work and come home. I loved having to make friends in order to get promotions. Now my sims don't have to talk to any one unless I make them greet the person first.
I had a love/hate relationship with that. I loved that I actually made friends easier, and faster really, but hated how I was forced to. Then again, friends are good to have!
Just be warned about Castaways: There are no new lots, so there's no place for you to put "survivors". I don't know what bright and shining light didn't think to add empty lots. I have Life Stories, but haven't really wanted to play it in awhile.
It's been a while but I'm sure after the end-game where you get married and decide to stay there are lots. Maybe none are empty but I think you can evict the inhabitants and build your own home. I could be wrong, but that's what I think from the vague memories I'm conjuring up. Although yes, you can't have multiple survivors living in the same neighbourhood (I think, gosh if I'm honest I have the tiniest shred of a memory) which is disappointing but not surprising.
Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong. ~ Donald Porter
So besides my honest confusion, which is better to you? Sims 2 or Sims 4? I won't lie, Sims 4 worlds seem sorta big even for a closed world but Sims 2, to me, looks a bit more realistic at points.
I think it is more complicated to tell which world is the biggest one. A neighborhood with three subneighborhoods in Sims 2 can easily hold more than a hundred sims. Even though Sims 4 worlds might seem large, they can hold fewer sims.
For the time being, I play Sims 3. To me, Sims 2, Sims 3 and Sims 4 all have their advances and disadvances. Sims 2 gets very complicated with a hundred or so households. Sims 4 has a short storyline.
Sims 2 sims limit is sky high - in the thousands - so it is practically impossible to ever have too many sims - and sims are never culled or killed off by the game. So there is no limit either to the number of subworlds I have been able to connect to a Sim world either. I had one Sims2 worlds that has 14 subworld maps beside the ones the game offered. My Kings world. Each Sub world is based off of a Stephen King book, I spent 2 year making that world and all the characters from them.
Sims 3 has a character ceiling so even if you have a huge world the game keeps culling the sims unless they are actively played households. Even then the game is known to kill the infants and toddlers in those households announcing in the paper these babies have died from an accidental drowning or something (even though babies and toddlers can't really go in the pools) if that household is not played often. Sims 3 starts doing the culling and moving households out of the world once the population gets over 140- or so, and in smaller world it is even sooner - under a hundred sims. So there is no benefit for having even a hundred houses in Sims 3 - not occupied anyway - as they are often culled if you don't play them. That's another reason Sims 2 was better as far as the Sims characters go. I mean how is it Sims 2 has no limit on the size of the world with subworlds, no limit on the number of sims in the game, and all community lots are live and fully playable with zero rabbit holes - cars act like real cars - memories act like real memories and not a scrap book like sims 3 or none really like Sims 4 (they are supposed to have memories and suppose to learn from their memories in Sims 4 - have yet to see this in operation but it was in a chat).
But anyway - I could understand a game cannot do everything - but by golly if a game can do all the things we had in Sims 2 ten years ago with all that old technology - it is virtually obscene for none of that to be standard fare in all the game since seeing the technology now runs circles around that of 10 years ago.
"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 think it's very hypocritical to claim that Sims 2 having a closed world is "okay", but Sims 4 having a closed world makes it a "horrible game". Most people exaggerate how bad Sims 4 actually is. In fact, I personally don't even think it compares to Sims 1 or Sims 2. It's simply a better game. I recently made attempts to play Sims 1 and Sims 2 again in like 5 years... I couldn't get attached to either one the same way I did when I used to play them. The Sims 4 is just a better game play experience. I couldn't even get back into playing Sims 3 after playing 4.
While Sims 4 may be missing open world and create a style, the game is still fun to play (especially with Create A Sim and Buy/Build modes)... but anyway, we're supposed to be talking about the worlds...
In Sims 2, the world was completely closed. You couldn't walk off your own lot at all. At least Sims 4 gives us a semi-open world. And while I certainly do wish the districts could at least be open, you can still wander around. Sims 2 didn't offer this. On the flip side, Sims 2 allows the player to add or remove lots. Sims 4 doesn't. The worlds in Sims 4 are also more realistic (with backgrounds, streets, and neighborhood districts). Honestly, the Sims 2 worlds didn't seem as real (same as Sims 3, to be honest). Not to mention that time still progresses in Sims 4 when travelling between lots... in Sims 2, if you left your home lot during the day and stayed at the community lot until night, it will still be daytime when you come back... that's not realistic at all. Also, you could also semi-control Sims in Sims 4 who are on different lots than the one that's currently active. In Sims 2, you were only allowed to control the Sims who were on the current lot.
Sims 2 was certainly great during its time. Don't get me wrong. I definitely had a lot of fun while playing it, but them I moved onto Sims 3, and then Sims 4. The Sims 4 is just more fun and exciting for me. Like I said, I think a lot of people are exaggerating how "terrible (if you would even call it that) The Sims 4 actually is. The game isn't all that bad. Yes, there are things it can improve on, but guess what? So could Sims 2 and Sims 3!
Just be warned about Castaways: There are no new lots, so there's no place for you to put "survivors". I don't know what bright and shining light didn't think to add empty lots. I have Life Stories, but haven't really wanted to play it in awhile.
no new lots ? doesn't that sound just like TS4 ?
i don't think that i can be disappointed with a side game to TheSims as old as 10 years after the experience with the all brand new TS4
we'll see, i just have fun right now, i really didn't expect much & am positively surprised
How is Castaway Stories anyway? I got Sims 2 Castaway for a PS2 emulator and can say I missed that game. Is Castaway Stories similar or?.... Worse?
i can't say anything about it since i don't own any console, never have
but in your place i would give it a shot, that TS2 Castaway Stories is done with so much detail, up till now i've seen apes, hyenas & a leopard, which look & interact quite good
there are tropic plants that don't look like mere fantasy but actually how they're supposed to be
there are new objects, most of them done with much love to give the player the feel of a lost on an island life
& there is indeed an own story, which is also quite interesting & also done with love
i am really surprised, didin't expect that much - i am probably meantime trimmed to expect from TheSims series just less of everything (this sounds sad)
i won't be participating in the forums & the gallery anymore - thanks EA
i wanted at first to address all of your points
& the post has gotten long & longer ...
i scrap that, i've written really enough at those forums here & so i write just short
6. The Sims 4 is just more fun and exciting for me.
may your fun with TS4 never fade - at least until TS5 is there
i won't be participating in the forums & the gallery anymore - thanks EA
I told myself that I would move on to TS3 once I did everything that TS2 has to offer. That being said, I'm still playing TS2 all these years later. I did buy TS3 + expansions last summer at a greatly reduced price and have played a few good marathon sessions, but I always end up back with TS2.
It's the world building, genetics, ability to customize everything and sim awareness that draws me in.
I don't want to play out a scripted, goal-oriented story that some developer that has a different definition of the word "fun" than me decided was awesome, I want to play out the scripted story in my own head.
I don't want to look at some empty shell of a building next to my sim's house that some developer that has a different definition of the word "beautiful" than me decided to place there, I want to look at the usable building that I chose to place there.
I don't want a bunch of weird, expendable townies that some developer that has a different definition of the word "interesting" than me decided to force my sim to interact with and then delete out of the hood willy-nilly, I want to play with the sims I decide to play with in my own hood.
ect. ect. ect.
I wish they'd just remake TS2 already. They don't even need to call it TS5, just call it The Sims "Nostalga". I'd throw all my money in that direction. Meanwhile, let the interns and first-year graduates that did TS4 make TS5 into whatever RPG suckfest they want and let everyone that enjoys that type of "do this, now do that, to do this you must do that first" play buy it instead.
Good point, I fear my 'I'll wait till this game has more content and then maybe I will be able to enjoy it' is a dream that will never come true, like Sims 3 didn't for people who preferred Sims 2 features.
I certainly don't hope they'll remake Sims 2 though, because for me Sims 3 is the better game. Like you I try to play one (2) but always end up starting the other (3). Asking for a Sims 2 remake is kind of selfish imo, because you deny others a good sims game. Would it really be so hard to create a Sims game that suits both type of players? A game with Sims 2 detail where it comes to animations and venues, and Sims 3 freedom and creativity?
They tried to imitate Sims 2 when they did Sims 4 (clearly trying to please Sims 3 dislikers in order to get them on board again) and it turned out to be a mess. I want them to create a worthy successor to both, not a remake of one of them. (I don't want a Sims 3 remake either)
@Anonymous_Loba24 said:
You can not be serious right now. We're debating Sims 2 World vs. Sims 4. If you haven't even played Sims 2 before, you really can't make a legit comment. Just common sense. Like I can't say anything bad about another country because I've never been to it, what would I know? You've never played Sims 2, as you say, and therefor your comment is kind of crappy. And thats my honest opinion, harsh as it may sound.
Btw you have a typo. You said 'unless you actually buyed the Get to work EP.' It's bought, not buyed. Sorry but I can be a complete grammar 🐸🐸🐸🐸 and that's just me.
Woah you got me there! I typed one word wrong in a complete comment, oh gosh no... Gonna die now.... -_-
I'm Dutch, for that simple reason i may have typo's or grammar faults indeed. I am so sorry my dearest God of all that i make mistakes, lol.
Just bugger of...
And no i didn't play TS2, who cares? I'm just pointing something out here. You don't like it? Scroll ahead.
I'm sure Anonymous_Loba24 knows the past participle of kopen
Sims 3 has a character ceiling.../ once the population gets over 140- or so, and in smaller world it is even sooner - under a hundred sims. So there is no benefit for having even a hundred houses in Sims 3 - not occupied anyway - as they are often culled if you don't play them.../
You have surprised me a lot with what you were saying there, I can´t be assertive about it because as you well know I have so many mods in my TS3 game that I can´t tell exactly which part of it works as if it was vainilla and which is dued to mods but in my TS3 games I have more tan 300 sims in whichever world I play and have no culling at all (OMG the game killing babies and toddlers I could not have stand to that!!)
I keep track of the population of my worlds in excell (I mean outside the TS) because it is so much numerous that I have troubles to find a certain family to play with if I don´t have their adresses in a list, and in one of my worlds (and it is not a very large one) I have more tan 500 sims living in their houses (all of them played at least for once) and about 150 NPCs "out of the world" and no one has been culled in a save that has been running for more than two years and has about five generations...
But maybe I have some mod that stops the culling and I have just forgotten, you know there is nothing going wrong in the game that Nraas Mods have not taken care of
I can play at last TS2 TS3 and TS4 So great that toddlers are here!!!
Yeah Anonymous_Loba24's post just met with an eyeroll from me. @Juuth of course your view is relevant. It wasn't like you were claiming any knowledge of TS2 or TS3 other than the feedback is positive enough to make you curious. A totally legitimate view. I have expressed fairly in depth views on TS4 GTW and I haven't played that. I think Anon must've just misread your thoughts on TS4 as being about TS2. Only sensible explanation I can think of.
Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong. ~ Donald Porter
last week i bought all 3 of those TS2 Stories
back then around 2005, as i played TS2 i never even considered it to buy those Stories, because those were "not really" The Sims games but some tiny laptop versions, but now with that TS4 mess i decided to dive deeper into the things i missed through the years
& i installed now Castaway Stories yesterday & it's so much fun
at first i was flustered that it was only 800x600 resolution but managed now to change that to my regular 1920x1080 - & so it's now just a blast
& additionally i ordered also TS3 Seasons
that's what is still waiting to be played by me
& several days ago as i had problems with my GPU i installed TS1 on my old computer & played that again - what an experience & how hard that game really was, so little money, so hard to gain friends & just stuck on this one lot - really tough game it was
so yeah - TS4 looses if compared to its predecessors, unfortunately, despite all its nice looks, it's just not enough
i learned to appreciate the previous versions because TS4 is such a mess if it comes to interactions & the bugs, all those bugs
Just be warned about Castaways: There are no new lots, so there's no place for you to put "survivors". I don't know what bright and shining light didn't think to add empty lots. I have Life Stories, but haven't really wanted to play it in awhile.
In free play mode there are several lots, both empty and premade. Castaway Stories was the highlight of the stories series, it was a complete redesign of The Sims 2 to turn it into a completely different game.
Sims 3 has a character ceiling.../ once the population gets over 140- or so, and in smaller world it is even sooner - under a hundred sims. So there is no benefit for having even a hundred houses in Sims 3 - not occupied anyway - as they are often culled if you don't play them.../
You have surprised me a lot with what you were saying there, I can´t be assertive about it because as you well know I have so many mods in my TS3 game that I can´t tell exactly which part of it works as if it was vainilla and which is dued to mods but in my TS3 games I have more tan 300 sims in whichever world I play and have no culling at all (OMG the game killing babies and toddlers I could not have stand to that!!)
I keep track of the population of my worlds in excell (I mean outside the TS) because it is so much numerous that I have troubles to find a certain family to play with if I don´t have their adresses in a list, and in one of my worlds (and it is not a very large one) I have more tan 500 sims living in their houses (all of them played at least for once) and about 150 NPCs "out of the world" and no one has been culled in a save that has been running for more than two years and has about five generations...
But maybe I have some mod that stops the culling and I have just forgotten, you know there is nothing going wrong in the game that Nraas Mods have not taken care of
I play the game vanilla and the only sims that get culled are the ones that live on their own. Households with more than one sim are never culled in my game.
So I'm playing Sims 2 and after not playing it for a while, I forgot about the closed world. Now that I realized it I thought, nothing really bad about this. I like this. So I'm playing and thinking, Sims 4 has a closed world too. What's it missing that Sims 2 has? The spark? I'm honestly confused because three minutes into Sims 2 and I'm so in tune I almost don't wanna go to prom just to keep playing (but we all know I'm not that insane). Yet three minutes into Sims 4 and I'm genuinely bored. I really can't pinpoint it considering I do have all EPs and SPs for Sims 2, yet I decided to take a trip down memory lane and start off in Pleasantview, and not do much considering eps and such.
So besides my honest confusion, which is better to you? Sims 2 or Sims 4? I won't lie, Sims 4 worlds seem sorta big even for a closed world but Sims 2, to me, looks a bit more realistic at points.
Funny you should bring up this subject today. I too started ts2 again after a long time of not playing it. I think that all the things like the little movie cuts, silly negative things like the social bunny, crazy doctor when your sim looses his mind, I don't know, can't think of everything, oh! hot tub movie...that to me is so darn cute! There's just a lot of really fun stuff in 2 that 3 & 4 don't have and most likely, never will no matter how many ep's they add. The team just won't put in the time and energy/money into those great features.
Plus, we have now at the helm of the Sims division that Rachel Franklin, who has her own vision and goals for our game, that have nothing to do with how we...the players...want the game. I'm getting the feeling that she's worse than Rod Humbug Humble for we long timers.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure, from what I've read, that gone our the days of really innovative fun Sims games in favor of fast moving, app type mentality for the future. I truly hope I'm wrong, but that's what it feels like to me me.
I think that Rachel Franklin's view of what makes a good game is vastly different than ours because she comes from mobile gaming. Mobile games are not deep, they are simple yet fun, and give out rewards along the way to keep you playing. A lot of shortcuts are taken, which is understandable for a game you're playing on the phone and for 30 minutes or so. There's no need to animate everything because it's understood computing power is very limited. I think as long as Rachel Franklin is running the Maxis studio, we'll get shortcuts and RPG type gaming. I don't think there's an open world sandbox type game for mobile yet, it doesn't exist which probably means that Franklin is just not familiar with those types of games and what is needed to make a good game of that type.
I'm disappointed in Lucy Bradshaw too. After working with Will Wright and being there for Sims 2 and Sims 3, she should know better. But maybe she was one of the people who weren't on board with Wright and disagreed with him. Will Wright said he had to fight, first to even make the Sims, most of the other programmers were against it and thought it was stupid. And second to design Sims 2 with failure states. It was only when he insisted (and he was the boss), did the feature get put in. So in short, Rachel Franklin should be on our watch list as well as Bradshaw.
I think it's very hypocritical to claim that Sims 2 having a closed world is "okay", but Sims 4 having a closed world makes it a "horrible game". Most people exaggerate how bad Sims 4 actually is. In fact, I personally don't even think it compares to Sims 1 or Sims 2. It's simply a better game. I recently made attempts to play Sims 1 and Sims 2 again in like 5 years... I couldn't get attached to either one the same way I did when I used to play them. The Sims 4 is just a better game play experience. I couldn't even get back into playing Sims 3 after playing 4.
While Sims 4 may be missing open world and create a style, the game is still fun to play (especially with Create A Sim and Buy/Build modes)... but anyway, we're supposed to be talking about the worlds...
In Sims 2, the world was completely closed. You couldn't walk off your own lot at all. At least Sims 4 gives us a semi-open world. And while I certainly do wish the districts could at least be open, you can still wander around. Sims 2 didn't offer this. On the flip side, Sims 2 allows the player to add or remove lots. Sims 4 doesn't. The worlds in Sims 4 are also more realistic (with backgrounds, streets, and neighborhood districts). Honestly, the Sims 2 worlds didn't seem as real (same as Sims 3, to be honest). Not to mention that time still progresses in Sims 4 when travelling between lots... in Sims 2, if you left your home lot during the day and stayed at the community lot until night, it will still be daytime when you come back... that's not realistic at all. Also, you could also semi-control Sims in Sims 4 who are on different lots than the one that's currently active. In Sims 2, you were only allowed to control the Sims who were on the current lot.
Sims 2 was certainly great during its time. Don't get me wrong. I definitely had a lot of fun while playing it, but them I moved onto Sims 3, and then Sims 4. The Sims 4 is just more fun and exciting for me. Like I said, I think a lot of people are exaggerating how "terrible (if you would even call it that) The Sims 4 actually is. The game isn't all that bad. Yes, there are things it can improve on, but guess what? So could Sims 2 and Sims 3!
The closed world in Sims 2 is actually manageable because the Sims 2 base game gave us more to do than Sims 4, with it's new editions. The only thing Sims 4 got going for it are a lot of funny, if not just plain mean, comments about it from the sausage guy to the screwed emotional system. Sims 2 gave you the creepy things only your sim can see when they going through a moment. A giant heli picking up people for work like its the most normal occurrence in the world. And honestly more people to meet and interact with in the tiny world. I'm positively sure ALL the Sims 4 inhabitants could fill up all of Pleasantview with lots of room to spare, because when you look at it, it's a tiny world. Yeah you can walk down the street, but to what avail? Oh mu gurd, street people! Exciting -_-. Seriously, it's not the fact that it's a closed world, it's the stuff IN the closed world that can make or break it. And for Sims 4, that stuff is just as exciting as an angry poop.
I recently made a thread about Sims 4 reactions/jealousy system compared to previous Sim games.
I feel like the Sims in TS4 are napping all the time. Motive levels go down entirely too fast.
Once their energy motive turns yellow, they are trying to find the nearest bed or bench to take a nap.
WAKE UP!
I truly believe the only exciting things to do in TS4 is to create a sim and build a huge beautiful house.
The game play itself in TS4 is BORING. Honestly. The multitasking in TS4 is a sigh of relief but the way they respond to their surroundings and each other is just....lifeless. In my opinion. The only time I get a reaction out of a sim is when something catches on fire.
Sometimes...
If a sim dies in a household, if that sim doesn't witness it, they won't even know.
If a sim cheats on another sim, if they walk in on the action while it is already going, they probably wont notice.
If a fight goes down, other sims will barely notice it. Then the two sims that were fighting will sit down and have a conversation like nothing ever happened. -_-
Anyway, I'm just ranting and raving. I digress.
We would just need to wait patiently until the devs put in something interesting back in TS4. If there is not much improvements in the game itself within 1 to 2 years, i guess many simmers will surrender this game entirely. It's just plain boring compared to its predecessors and buggy at the moment.
Yeah, that "something" will probably cost us $39.99 -_-
Sigh.
Sims 2 is so much better. I mean the map, it's "realistic" and you can move it from side to side. I don't have to stare at a white map that looks like a toddler could color.
I mean I think that whole open neighborhood but not really open feels better than S2, but S2 has so much charm that you really kinda just forget about that. As in there's a lot to make up for it. But S4? Meh.
By the way, I firmly believe that the reason the loading screens aren't such a big deal in the Sims 2 as compared to the loading screens in The Sims 4, is because the TS2 loading screens don't break the immersion in the way that the TS4 loading screen does.
The TS2 loading screens *are* a part of the action: Your Sim gets in the taxi/car pool/private car and goes to town/community lot, and you see your Sim's transportation as part of the loading screen. When the Sim reaches their destination, the Sim climbs out of the taxi or car. And so, the player doesn't lose the immersion the way he/she does with the Sims 4 loading screen which is nothing more than a eye-flashing green rotating plumb bob.
This is an awesome point. I never thought of it that way.
Yeah Anonymous_Loba24's post just met with an eyeroll from me. @Juuth of course your view is relevant. It wasn't like you were claiming any knowledge of TS2 or TS3 other than the feedback is positive enough to make you curious. A totally legitimate view. I have expressed fairly in depth views on TS4 GTW and I haven't played that. I think Anon must've just misread your thoughts on TS4 as being about TS2. Only sensible explanation I can think of.
Well I was raised to believe, and I still do, that if something or someone is asking for opinions on multiple different things, it only makes sense to at least have SOME experience before giving an opinion. Makes no sense to somewhat bash something you have no experience with.
Ok that was weird. I tried to post while logged in and was being told I didn't have permission to do that, so I will try this again. I also liked the fact that in S2 we had more options when you sent a sim to school or work. At times it may have been annoying but I knew I could always meet all co-workers or meet students. Now everyone "knows" you and you start off by talking to friends. It was fun having a sim rush to finish their homework before they got to school. Now if they don't finish it nothing happens they stay a C student at least in my game they did.
This semester I had to read a case study called: "Discovering What Has Already Been Discovered: Why Did Your Customers Hire Your Product?" and while I don't mix my online and offline life, I really wanted to use TS4 as the example as a perfect result of what happens when companies don't understand why or how customers use their products. TS4 could have been the XP of Sims games, but instead of capitalising on what their target audience already used the Sims for and innovating to attract a new target audience... well, they dumped toddlers and gave us silly walks and this game will never be as financially successful as its predecessors unless they can whip out overpriced EPs and GPs on a train schedule to keep their remaining loyal players amused. It's too bad, really.
By the way, I firmly believe that the reason the loading screens aren't such a big deal in the Sims 2 as compared to the loading screens in The Sims 4, is because the TS2 loading screens don't break the immersion in the way that the TS4 loading screen does.
The TS2 loading screens *are* a part of the action: Your Sim gets in the taxi/car pool/private car and goes to town/community lot, and you see your Sim's transportation as part of the loading screen. When the Sim reaches their destination, the Sim climbs out of the taxi or car. And so, the player doesn't lose the immersion the way he/she does with the Sims 4 loading screen which is nothing more than a eye-flashing green rotating plumb bob.
This is an awesome point. I never thought of it that way.
I never thought of it that way either and I don't' care for loading screen I just know Sims 2 loading screen didn't hurt my eyes. I'm not sure who thought a white screen was a good idea it's boring and hurts the eyes.
Comments
It was fun when I first played it. But once my sim made it to marry one of the tribe people he kept being nasty to her. He fell out of love with my sim many times. I think I stil have it but out of all the sims I have played ts2 was my favorite. Then ts3, ts1 and ts4. Maybe if I had more to do other than go to work and come home. I loved having to make friends in order to get promotions. Now my sims don't have to talk to any one unless I make them greet the person first.
I had a love/hate relationship with that. I loved that I actually made friends easier, and faster really, but hated how I was forced to. Then again, friends are good to have!
Sims 2 sims limit is sky high - in the thousands - so it is practically impossible to ever have too many sims - and sims are never culled or killed off by the game. So there is no limit either to the number of subworlds I have been able to connect to a Sim world either. I had one Sims2 worlds that has 14 subworld maps beside the ones the game offered. My Kings world. Each Sub world is based off of a Stephen King book, I spent 2 year making that world and all the characters from them.
Sims 3 has a character ceiling so even if you have a huge world the game keeps culling the sims unless they are actively played households. Even then the game is known to kill the infants and toddlers in those households announcing in the paper these babies have died from an accidental drowning or something (even though babies and toddlers can't really go in the pools) if that household is not played often. Sims 3 starts doing the culling and moving households out of the world once the population gets over 140- or so, and in smaller world it is even sooner - under a hundred sims. So there is no benefit for having even a hundred houses in Sims 3 - not occupied anyway - as they are often culled if you don't play them. That's another reason Sims 2 was better as far as the Sims characters go. I mean how is it Sims 2 has no limit on the size of the world with subworlds, no limit on the number of sims in the game, and all community lots are live and fully playable with zero rabbit holes - cars act like real cars - memories act like real memories and not a scrap book like sims 3 or none really like Sims 4 (they are supposed to have memories and suppose to learn from their memories in Sims 4 - have yet to see this in operation but it was in a chat).
But anyway - I could understand a game cannot do everything - but by golly if a game can do all the things we had in Sims 2 ten years ago with all that old technology - it is virtually obscene for none of that to be standard fare in all the game since seeing the technology now runs circles around that of 10 years ago.
"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.....
While Sims 4 may be missing open world and create a style, the game is still fun to play (especially with Create A Sim and Buy/Build modes)... but anyway, we're supposed to be talking about the worlds...
In Sims 2, the world was completely closed. You couldn't walk off your own lot at all. At least Sims 4 gives us a semi-open world. And while I certainly do wish the districts could at least be open, you can still wander around. Sims 2 didn't offer this. On the flip side, Sims 2 allows the player to add or remove lots. Sims 4 doesn't. The worlds in Sims 4 are also more realistic (with backgrounds, streets, and neighborhood districts). Honestly, the Sims 2 worlds didn't seem as real (same as Sims 3, to be honest). Not to mention that time still progresses in Sims 4 when travelling between lots... in Sims 2, if you left your home lot during the day and stayed at the community lot until night, it will still be daytime when you come back... that's not realistic at all. Also, you could also semi-control Sims in Sims 4 who are on different lots than the one that's currently active. In Sims 2, you were only allowed to control the Sims who were on the current lot.
Sims 2 was certainly great during its time. Don't get me wrong. I definitely had a lot of fun while playing it, but them I moved onto Sims 3, and then Sims 4. The Sims 4 is just more fun and exciting for me. Like I said, I think a lot of people are exaggerating how "terrible (if you would even call it that) The Sims 4 actually is. The game isn't all that bad. Yes, there are things it can improve on, but guess what? So could Sims 2 and Sims 3!
Sims 1: Hot Date
Sims 2: Seasons
Sims 2: Happy Holiday Stuff
Sims 3: Seasons
Sims 3: 70's, 80's, & 90's Stuff
Sims 4: Seasons
Sims 4: Paranormal Stuff
Sims 4: Strangerville Game Pack
i don't think that i can be disappointed with a side game to TheSims as old as 10 years after the experience with the all brand new TS4
we'll see, i just have fun right now, i really didn't expect much & am positively surprised
i can't say anything about it since i don't own any console, never have
but in your place i would give it a shot, that TS2 Castaway Stories is done with so much detail, up till now i've seen apes, hyenas & a leopard, which look & interact quite good
there are tropic plants that don't look like mere fantasy but actually how they're supposed to be
there are new objects, most of them done with much love to give the player the feel of a lost on an island life
& there is indeed an own story, which is also quite interesting & also done with love
i am really surprised, didin't expect that much - i am probably meantime trimmed to expect from TheSims series just less of everything (this sounds sad)
i wanted at first to address all of your points
& the post has gotten long & longer ...
i scrap that, i've written really enough at those forums here & so i write just short
may your fun with TS4 never fade - at least until TS5 is there
I meant native English speaking obviously.
I certainly don't hope they'll remake Sims 2 though, because for me Sims 3 is the better game. Like you I try to play one (2) but always end up starting the other (3). Asking for a Sims 2 remake is kind of selfish imo, because you deny others a good sims game. Would it really be so hard to create a Sims game that suits both type of players? A game with Sims 2 detail where it comes to animations and venues, and Sims 3 freedom and creativity?
They tried to imitate Sims 2 when they did Sims 4 (clearly trying to please Sims 3 dislikers in order to get them on board again) and it turned out to be a mess. I want them to create a worthy successor to both, not a remake of one of them. (I don't want a Sims 3 remake either)
You have surprised me a lot with what you were saying there, I can´t be assertive about it because as you well know I have so many mods in my TS3 game that I can´t tell exactly which part of it works as if it was vainilla and which is dued to mods but in my TS3 games I have more tan 300 sims in whichever world I play and have no culling at all (OMG the game killing babies and toddlers I could not have stand to that!!)
I keep track of the population of my worlds in excell (I mean outside the TS) because it is so much numerous that I have troubles to find a certain family to play with if I don´t have their adresses in a list, and in one of my worlds (and it is not a very large one) I have more tan 500 sims living in their houses (all of them played at least for once) and about 150 NPCs "out of the world" and no one has been culled in a save that has been running for more than two years and has about five generations...
But maybe I have some mod that stops the culling and I have just forgotten, you know there is nothing going wrong in the game that Nraas Mods have not taken care of
I can play at last TS2 TS3 and TS4 So great that toddlers are here!!!
In free play mode there are several lots, both empty and premade. Castaway Stories was the highlight of the stories series, it was a complete redesign of The Sims 2 to turn it into a completely different game.
Funny you should bring up this subject today. I too started ts2 again after a long time of not playing it. I think that all the things like the little movie cuts, silly negative things like the social bunny, crazy doctor when your sim looses his mind, I don't know, can't think of everything, oh! hot tub movie...that to me is so darn cute! There's just a lot of really fun stuff in 2 that 3 & 4 don't have and most likely, never will no matter how many ep's they add. The team just won't put in the time and energy/money into those great features.
Plus, we have now at the helm of the Sims division that Rachel Franklin, who has her own vision and goals for our game, that have nothing to do with how we...the players...want the game. I'm getting the feeling that she's worse than Rod Humbug Humble for we long timers.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure, from what I've read, that gone our the days of really innovative fun Sims games in favor of fast moving, app type mentality for the future. I truly hope I'm wrong, but that's what it feels like to me me.
I'm disappointed in Lucy Bradshaw too. After working with Will Wright and being there for Sims 2 and Sims 3, she should know better. But maybe she was one of the people who weren't on board with Wright and disagreed with him. Will Wright said he had to fight, first to even make the Sims, most of the other programmers were against it and thought it was stupid. And second to design Sims 2 with failure states. It was only when he insisted (and he was the boss), did the feature get put in. So in short, Rachel Franklin should be on our watch list as well as Bradshaw.
The closed world in Sims 2 is actually manageable because the Sims 2 base game gave us more to do than Sims 4, with it's new editions. The only thing Sims 4 got going for it are a lot of funny, if not just plain mean, comments about it from the sausage guy to the screwed emotional system. Sims 2 gave you the creepy things only your sim can see when they going through a moment. A giant heli picking up people for work like its the most normal occurrence in the world. And honestly more people to meet and interact with in the tiny world. I'm positively sure ALL the Sims 4 inhabitants could fill up all of Pleasantview with lots of room to spare, because when you look at it, it's a tiny world. Yeah you can walk down the street, but to what avail? Oh mu gurd, street people! Exciting -_-. Seriously, it's not the fact that it's a closed world, it's the stuff IN the closed world that can make or break it. And for Sims 4, that stuff is just as exciting as an angry poop.
I feel like the Sims in TS4 are napping all the time. Motive levels go down entirely too fast.
Once their energy motive turns yellow, they are trying to find the nearest bed or bench to take a nap.
WAKE UP!
I truly believe the only exciting things to do in TS4 is to create a sim and build a huge beautiful house.
The game play itself in TS4 is BORING. Honestly. The multitasking in TS4 is a sigh of relief but the way they respond to their surroundings and each other is just....lifeless. In my opinion. The only time I get a reaction out of a sim is when something catches on fire.
Sometimes...
If a sim dies in a household, if that sim doesn't witness it, they won't even know.
If a sim cheats on another sim, if they walk in on the action while it is already going, they probably wont notice.
If a fight goes down, other sims will barely notice it. Then the two sims that were fighting will sit down and have a conversation like nothing ever happened. -_-
Anyway, I'm just ranting and raving. I digress.
Yeah, that "something" will probably cost us $39.99 -_-
Sigh.
I mean I think that whole open neighborhood but not really open feels better than S2, but S2 has so much charm that you really kinda just forget about that. As in there's a lot to make up for it. But S4? Meh.
This is an awesome point. I never thought of it that way.
Well I was raised to believe, and I still do, that if something or someone is asking for opinions on multiple different things, it only makes sense to at least have SOME experience before giving an opinion. Makes no sense to somewhat bash something you have no experience with.
This semester I had to read a case study called: "Discovering What Has Already Been Discovered: Why Did Your Customers Hire Your Product?" and while I don't mix my online and offline life, I really wanted to use TS4 as the example as a perfect result of what happens when companies don't understand why or how customers use their products. TS4 could have been the XP of Sims games, but instead of capitalising on what their target audience already used the Sims for and innovating to attract a new target audience... well, they dumped toddlers and gave us silly walks