Remember when they announced there would be no rabbit holes? That was listening to consumers. Remember when they said that babies had legs? That was listening to consumers.
So they do listen. They just seem incapable of understanding.
Heh, except they do have rabbit holes. Or do they think leaving out the actual building and just having the sims go *poof* means that there are no rabbit holes? Heck, even the rocket is a rabbit hole as are the short trips to hidden lots.
Edit: Gah, I do miss the LOL button though. You post genuinely made me laugh. I gave you an awesome instead.
LOL, yeah I'm not sure how someone comes to the conclusion that your sims just poofing out of existence when they go to work/school is better than having a rabbit hole in the world. The problem with rabbit holes wasn't the physical building being on the map, it was the fact I wanted to go to those places and actively play the game. I wanted all the careers to be active careers this time around. In fact the poofing, to me, is far worse than having a rabbit hole.
Remember when they announced there would be no rabbit holes? That was listening to consumers. Remember when they said that babies had legs? That was listening to consumers.
So they do listen. They just seem incapable of understanding.
Heh, except they do have rabbit holes. Or do they think leaving out the actual building and just having the sims go *poof* means that there are no rabbit holes? Heck, even the rocket is a rabbit hole as are the short trips to hidden lots.
Edit: Gah, I do miss the LOL button though. You post genuinely made me laugh. I gave you an awesome instead.
LOL, yeah I'm not sure how someone comes to the conclusion that your sims just poofing out of existence when they go to work/school is better than having a rabbit hole in the world. The problem with rabbit holes wasn't the physical building being on the map, it was the fact I wanted to go to those places and actively play the game. I wanted all the careers to be active careers this time around. In fact the poofing, to me, is far worse than having a rabbit hole.
I am sure that the team just became tired of people complaining about rabbit holes which only took space up in the neighborhood without being useful. So they concluded that it would be a waste of time and resources to make them for TS4 too. Therefore they just omitted them
I preferred a closed world because my computer couldn't run sims 3. but that's why I play sims 2. sims 4 should have an open world and much more than sims 3. I mean it's a sequel right? they shouldn't make it a closed world just because people like me have lower computers to run it on. they should totally expand on it and make it bigger and better. the only thing I like about sims 4 is the create a sim because I can make myself more accurately but that's about it.
EA clearly listens to complaints. All the Sims 2 players complained about rotation playing and story progression so they gave us Sims 4.
Ummm - you have that very confused. First of all Rotational play and SP do not go together. SP is what they depend on in games without rotational play. True Rotational play is where the player controls all the households of the game with no SP like in Sims 2. Sims 3 has SP and no real rotational play as it should. Yes over the years of Sims 3 production the devs did make a stab at adding more capability of playing more than a single house hold but was never true rotational play like in Sims 2 where nothing changes in the game except what the player controls with ZERO SP. Sims 4 had almost no SP - which has been tweaked to a degree - so this is no longer Sims 2 style of true rotational play as it was the day the game came out. Now it is simply something else.
"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.....
Heh, except they do have rabbit holes. Or do they think leaving out the actual building and just having the sims go *poof* means that there are no rabbit holes? Heck, even the rocket is a rabbit hole as are the short trips to hidden lots.
Edit: Gah, I do miss the LOL button though. You post genuinely made me laugh. I gave you an awesome instead.
Yeah rabbit holes did not go away with the Sims 4. I mean we don't even have transportation in the game anymore thanks to rabbit holes. Social worker has become a rabbit hole too. I guess it is the type of thing if people don't see it with a building, they think they don't exist anymore.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Heh, except they do have rabbit holes. Or do they think leaving out the actual building and just having the sims go *poof* means that there are no rabbit holes? Heck, even the rocket is a rabbit hole as are the short trips to hidden lots.
Edit: Gah, I do miss the LOL button though. You post genuinely made me laugh. I gave you an awesome instead.
Yeah rabbit holes did not go away with the Sims 4. I mean we don't even have transportation in the game anymore thanks to rabbit holes. Social worker has become a rabbit hole too. I guess it is the type of thing if people don't see it with a building, they think they don't exist anymore.
Without the buildings - before them anyway in Sims 1 and 2 - we called it teleporting. It was rather exciting and mystifying. But plop they put down a building that took up a lot of space and took away the mystery and it became rabbit holes - you know like rabbits disappearing in a hole in the ground and lost the rather romantic ideal of teleportation.
Sims 2 even had teleporters as one of the high end reward objects that further enhanced the appeal of teleporting, never mind many other delights that often resulted in a cute little cut scenes to occupy us as our sims tumbled to where ever.
Sims 1 had actual holes we could place on the ground in Making Magic for sims to disappear into and come up in one of the Magic Town spots. It was rather like magic took one tiny little square and was rather cool to see them jump in a hole and pop up like a rabbit at the other end from another hole. It was fun - not a big and bulky building which we could not make our selves never mind fix it up with out the game acting like we had stabbed it in the heart for wanting to put something in the other wise empty space. Yet people kept trying. The least they could have done was make the rabbit hole compatiable to being dressed up inside with out the game going into a tizzy over it. Do not even get me started on trying to combine other game buildings with any of those rabbit holes. But those are neither here nor there - well they are there back in sims 3 - and no longer the issues. We have bigger fish to fry - like the whole darn game now.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I hope you mean what some fans are feeling. Sparkfairy doesn't speak for me.
I also the don't appreciate the implications made by some other posters in here that those of us who enjoy the sims 4 are either A: too young to know any better, B: haven't player the other games, or are C: less intelligent then those who enjoy the previous iterations.
It's really hard to support family players or any other type of player when I constantly see these comments being upvoted.
Honestly there isn't a lot of Sims 1 players around as shown in various of polls done. Provide another poll via Twitter, forums, Tumbler, and Facebook to prove me wrong then. I welcome it. It was bound to happen with a Sims game, so don't take it as an insult. It is just an observation from what I've noticed from forums, Twitter, Facebook, reddit, tumbler, MTS, and other sites. I don't appreciate being lumped together with other Sims 4 players that just come on forums to call people who don't agree with them "bashers" or "haters" either. It gives Sims 4 players a bad reputation. Point is, just because someone has played the Sims 4 doesn't mean they'll like all aspects of the game. I didn't like all aspects of the Sims 3 either. So no I don't appreciate when some try to speak on my behalf of all Sims 4 players either that they must love the game or get away from forums or it is just Sims 3 fans that don't like the game.
The too young comments probably have to do with the surveys showing ageism for Simmers 18 years or older. People have their opinions, some like it, some don't like the game. It has nothing to do with their intelligence. Sadly I've seen all different types of Simmers being called crazy sadly which is uncalled for. I won't deny that there has been Simmers who have either stop liking the game, end up liking it after some patches have been done, or don't bother with it at all. But what I don't understand is why don't more Sims 4 players want a more appealing game for everyone? It doesn't make sense to me. It isn't the same community I remember that want features held back and rather have a game that removes things instead of improve them.
I still play Sims 1, Sims 2, and Sims 3, and enjoy Sims 4. I have played the Sims series since I bought Livin Large and The Sims in my 20s. Would I like more features and life-stages? Of course. But their absence doesn't wreck the game for me. After playing Sims 1, Sims 4 is still more advanced than Sims 1, but it doesn't have its nostalgic charm. Unlike some, I haven't had game-wrecking bugs in Sims 4. Sims 4 is more comparable to Sims 2, only all its expansion packs have not been released yet.
Like many others my age (I am in my mid-40s) I grew up on Space Invaders and Pacman, so perhaps I am easily amused. I don't insist on 64-bit games, even though my notebook computer is capable of 64 bit. I actually bought SimCity 2013 when the price had gone down just to see if it was that bad. It was ok as a casual game (and I do play casual games) but the single-player feature (which is what really sold me on the game) had some bugs. I don't buy MMO games, because the ones I have bought went under soon afterwards, resulting in my money being wasted.
Sparkfairy, the article is well-written, but it is biased towards those who dislike Sims 4. Since you are one of those who dislike the game and you wrote the article, this is understandable. I don't know whether the number of Sims series fans who like Sims 4 is in the majority, or the number of Sims series fans who dislike Sims 4 is in the majority, but each group likes to claim the majority for their side in order to marginalize the other side. The article barely acknowledged that some Sims fans actually enjoy playing Sims 4, instead focusing on the reasons some people dislike Sims 4. Certainly there are valid reasons for disliking Sims 4, but there are also valid reasons for liking Sims 4 as well.
I have been playing The Sims since 2001, when Livin Large came out. My avatar deliberately looks like Chris Roomies from TS1.
@SimsILikeSims the whole premise of the article was to look at why their continues to be issues around complaints. It would have made no sense if I'd have gone on about why you love the game-because the article was looking at why the complaints exist because often EA will gloss over or try to pretend those issues don't exist.
I'm happy you like the game-and like I said within the article I hope you continue to do so for years to come! However EA are letting everyone down by not dealing with these issues because it's preventing the full potential for the game-of all the customers they threw out with their decisions they have huge untapped resources of profits. And instead of at least trying to deal with the issue they act like their customers who say they aren't happy are unreasonable. That's not fair-people who have supported them for up to fifteen years like us deserve to be treated better than that by EA. Without all of us supporting the sims it wouldn't have got as far as it has-we are all a part of simming history.
I never claimed any minority/majority. Never have, never will. Because it doesn't matter-I know that EA are turning away investment in the game by refusing to address issues-which in the end will affect the production of this game and the amount of access to further development funds for the game you enjoy. With so much restructuring, cutting so many costs and moving Maxis under the mobile division doesn't give me a good feeling. Because match it with the relentless silence towards us, the attempts to excuse themselves from dealing with the customers they upset and the complete denial anything is wrong it looks like the desire to do something isn't there.
I am genuinely happy for you that you like the game-obviously it caters well enough to your tastes in the game. But I can't play with your enjoyment of the game-I need to be catered to too-and if they have no intention of giving me the tools to enjoy the game it was wrong to promise things they won't deliver and take my money. If they can't or won't cater they should be offering recompense to those who bought based on false promises.
I still play Sims 1, Sims 2, and Sims 3, and enjoy Sims 4. I have played the Sims series since I bought Livin Large and The Sims in my 20s. Would I like more features and life-stages? Of course. But their absence doesn't wreck the game for me. After playing Sims 1, Sims 4 is still more advanced than Sims 1, but it doesn't have its nostalgic charm. Unlike some, I haven't had game-wrecking bugs in Sims 4. Sims 4 is more comparable to Sims 2, only all its expansion packs have not been released yet.
Like many others my age (I am in my mid-40s) I grew up on Space Invaders and Pacman, so perhaps I am easily amused. I don't insist on 64-bit games, even though my notebook computer is capable of 64 bit. I actually bought SimCity 2013 when the price had gone down just to see if it was that bad. It was ok as a casual game (and I do play casual games) but the single-player feature (which is what really sold me on the game) had some bugs. I don't buy MMO games, because the ones I have bought went under soon afterwards, resulting in my money being wasted.
Sparkfairy, the article is well-written, but it is biased towards those who dislike Sims 4. Since you are one of those who dislike the game and you wrote the article, this is understandable. I don't know whether the number of Sims series fans who like Sims 4 is in the majority, or the number of Sims series fans who dislike Sims 4 is in the majority, but each group likes to claim the majority for their side in order to marginalize the other side. The article barely acknowledged that some Sims fans actually enjoy playing Sims 4, instead focusing on the reasons some people dislike Sims 4. Certainly there are valid reasons for disliking Sims 4, but there are also valid reasons for liking Sims 4 as well.
Yeah I think it is subjective now. Sorry I didn't mean it to exclude Simmers with. The how do you play family thread is a good way to show every Simmer plays the Sims differently. Awesome you grew up with Space Invaders and Pacman. I used to play both at my cousin's house who had an arcade machine of the games. I'm actually really happy for those that enjoy the game still. I used to, but with time and playing "things change". I don't hate the game and I don't love it. I just get bored with it unlike the previous three games. It upsets me that is different this time. I just can't explain other than the loss of detail to life stages doesn't hold my retention anymore.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
@SimsILikeSims the whole premise of the article was to look at why their continues to be issues around complaints. It would have made no sense if I'd have gone on about why you love the game-because the article was looking at why the complaints exist because often EA will gloss over or try to pretend those issues don't exist.
I'm happy you like the game-and like I said within the article I hope you continue to do so for years to come! However EA are letting everyone down by not dealing with these issues because it's preventing the full potential for the game-of all the customers they threw out with their decisions they have huge untapped resources of profits. And instead of at least trying to deal with the issue they act like their customers who say they aren't happy are unreasonable. That's not fair-people who have supported them for up to fifteen years like us deserve to be treated better than that by EA. Without all of us supporting the sims it wouldn't have got as far as it has-we are all a part of simming history.
I never claimed any minority/majority. Never have, never will. Because it doesn't matter-I know that EA are turning away investment in the game by refusing to address issues-which in the end will affect the production of this game and the amount of access to further development funds for the game you enjoy. With so much restructuring, cutting so many costs and moving Maxis under the mobile division doesn't give me a good feeling. Because match it with the relentless silence towards us, the attempts to excuse themselves from dealing with the customers they upset and the complete denial anything is wrong it looks like the desire to do something isn't there.
I am genuinely happy for you that you like the game-obviously it caters well enough to your tastes in the game. But I can't play with your enjoyment of the game-I need to be catered to too-and if they have no intention of giving me the tools to enjoy the game it was wrong to promise things they won't deliver and take my money. If they can't or won't cater they should be offering recompense to those who bought based on false promises.
Of course EA's PR department is going to gloss over customer complaints, just like any other good PR department would. It would be nice if they promised us what the game doesn't currently offer (ie toddlers, family play etc) but only if they actually delivered everything everyone was expecting. From reading the forums, I know (and hopefully the developers do too) that an object toddler would not be enough to satisfy most family players. Yet programming-wise that would probably be the easiest to do, and a modder could probably create an object toddler as an independent object except that babies would not grow into these modded "toddlers", nor would these modded toddlers ever grow up.
So a lot more time will have to be spent on developing toddlers, and hopefully the longer they take the better they will be when they come out. I will join you in being disappointed if they never implement toddlers in Sims 4, but haven't given up, and in the meantime I play single Sims and couples. Besides, I don't play often enough to juggle multiple-Sim households with more than 4 sims in the household. I have never much cared for time-management games, once past a certain level in the game. When I miss toddlers, I simply go back to playing Sims 2 or Sims 3 or Sims Freeplay. Even if I didn't like Sims 4, I wouldn't expect any money back past 30 days after I bought the game, just like you cannot return a CD/DVD that has been opened except for the same title if you are lucky. I see nothing wrong in going back to old games that you have enjoyed. Just because the next game in the series comes out, doesn't have to mean you get rid of the previous game, unless you need hard drive space or shelf space, or the game stops working on your new computer.
I will agree that the trend to push consumers away from PC games towards tablet/phone games is alarming. I do have an iPad mini, but sometimes I just like having a larger screen, and more depth to the games. I don't have cellular on my iPad so I don't play it everywhere, just where there is WiFi, and sometimes I don't take it with me because I don't want to forget it (like to the grocery store). My cell phone is old school, only capable of talk, text, and a text web browser.
EA also has a bad record of buying independent studios (like Maxis before EA acquired it), milking the product for all its worth and then defunding their products when they think they have had a good run, or want to invest in something else. The studio that produced Skylines had better watch out.
I have been playing The Sims since 2001, when Livin Large came out. My avatar deliberately looks like Chris Roomies from TS1.
@SimsILikeSims I think generally the main difference between us on this issue is just a subjective experience and opinion on the game. I very much believe it's easier to wait for improvements if you already enjoy the game-I'm sure you understand that for those of us who spent a lot of money on the base based on promises of priorities in dealing with the unfinished base and who don't already enjoy the game it creates an uncomfortable feeling of being led astray by EA in buying when we've seen that clearly claims of a priority hasn't been the case given their own statements after the fact. I feel like they've taken my money based on promises they made to keep my preorder-a substantial amount of money at that and then when it comes to honouring those promises they aren't upfront about it. When youve spent all that money and could have invested your money elsewhere that is bound to make people feel ripped off. Potential means nothing if it's never utilised and Ive had a game that wasn't created for me sitting on my computer irritating me because I fell for their promises.
I understand that marketing job is to make the game look good. But from a customer service standpoint they could zip their lips about making comments about those making complaints as tight as they do about the missing content-instead of aggravating the situation further by creating a narrative about people who have been among some of their biggest supporters over the years. That right there is why I eventually stopped believing in the team or EA-I spent a lot of time advocating for patience and benefit of the doubt before that. Then to see comments making out that the issue lies with consumers who have been very loyal really showed me how little they value their customer base.
Customers who have supported them for up to fifteen years don't just become unreasonable. They know how upset some customers feel-and instead of even attempting to fix or at least apply some compassion and communicate about it they've avoided the issue completely. They know it's made things steadily worse, but still they plough on ignoring it with us-but coming out with little comments about customers who are disappointed and making it an even worse experience for those involved.
What's ironic is I bought TS4 expecting that Maxis would have learnt big lessons from SC2013 and how to deal with their customers. I feel foolish because actually this feels worse! At least with SC2013 Lucy Bradshaw came to the forums to talk to the customers-and they attempted to make up for went wrong by offering a gesture of goodwill of another game for free to tide those customers over who were having such issues.
I don't think there's anything wrong with playing older games either. But I do think there is with taking money for TS4 and expecting customers to wait years for big holes to be fixed in the base while they churn out further paid content. They should have a dedicated team to finish the base and reward those of us who invested early despite concerns.
I'm well aware of EA'S MO with studios. I was a huge fan of Bullfrog who was swallowed up by EA and disbanded, disregarding some of my favourite games too.
I have been around since before the sims with Maxis. I have supported them for a great many years, and I find it highly disrespectful that my loyalty isn't appreciated and to see comments attempting to blame their supporters for feelings of disappointment.
None of us were responsible for development. EA made the mistake for Olympus but essentially we are all paying a high cost because of this-and I don't think that's right. I think they should be diverting some money towards the sims studio like how they diverted some of the sims funds to other games in trouble (because not having enough budget and time to finish the base is trouble) because I think it's the least the customers deserve.
As for mobile. If they take the sims mobile only I will walk away without a doubt. Not interested. I want an in depth PC experience. If EA don't want to furnish us with that I will take my money elsewhere. The sims is the perfect concept for me-but on PC. I've played enough sims mobile games and console versions to know they don't hold a torch to the traditional PC versions.
@sparkfairy1 Unfortunately the game belongs to EA. So they can do with it what they want and have no obligation to continue the series forever without any major changes.
There were also a lot of gamers who loved their games on the Commodore 64 or the Commodore Amiga. They thought also that they had paid a lot of money to support their games on those platforms. But the game companies stopped making games for those computers anyway even though a lot of people didn't like it. Just like you don't like changes to the Sims games.
The Sims series belongs to EA. So they have every right to do with the series whatever they want. There isn't a thing we can do about it. You would apparently like them to just make more Sims games which were very similar to TS3. But EA's problem was that such a game wouldn't sell nearly as well as TS3 did because most simmers already owned TS3. A new basegame in the same style therefore wouldn't sell very well at all. People would just go on playing TS3 and wait to see if TS4 finally would get some interesting expansions after a year or two. But EA would have had to stop the series before that because the sales numbers had been too low to finance more expansions.
Therefore EA just had to change the game (or stop the series for good). I don't like many of the ways this was done either. But to do it in a better way was actually very difficult. None of us would have liked it to be an online game instead. But we wouldn't really have liked any other major changes either. That was EA's dilemma because they just had to change the game to avoid unacceptable low sales numbers.
TS5 seems to me to be nearly impossible because it can't be very similar to neither TS3 nor TS4. They have to do something else. Hopefully technological improvements will help them to find a better way.
I don't fear the mobile versions of the game like you do because there are much better options for renewing the game on those platforms. Don't forget that we are several years out in the future when we discuss this. At that time mobile gaming will have changed because tablets will have much more power and memory and they will probably have bigger screens too. Maybe they will even run a future version of Windows and have more power than PCs have today.
@Erpe you are making a leap of assumptions there. No I don't want a 'remake' of TS3. I want a progression of the entire series as I have been a fan since the beginning. Your assertion that customers won't but a next generation sims game if they own previous games doesn't work because I willingly abandoned each predecessor with each next generation, as did many, many sims customers. Difference is that with TS4 they let themselves down by forcing a feature that noone wanted and instead of taking the time to turn that around when they realiased it wasn't a viable option they pushed ahead and rushed a conversion.
I don't believe the sims was in trouble with low sales. If sales suffered it's because they made so many mistakes around creating TS4, not realising that sims fans don't have to accept lower quality just because there is no competition-because they have the option of old games or not buying at all. They didn't expect the sims customers to know better and expect more of them. We all saw the adverts for the subscription service which ties in with the themes of the game packs. There's a reason they didn't go ahead with that subscription service. EA don't easily give up chances for monetising every way they can. They knew the backlash about the base would only get worse with a feature like that!
I don't 'fear' mobile. I'm just not interested. There's a big difference. And if you had read my posts previously you would see that feeling is based on very poor experiences around EA mobile games. I've owned a few of their apps-and of all the apps I use generally they are the least reliable and the issues take forever to be resolved.
Yes the sims belongs to EA. But treating people who have been loyal to them for many years poorly reflects very badly on them. Especially when they didn't communicate that some customers weren't welcome and made promises to those customers they haven't kept in order to keep their money! They didn't mind taking the money from us.
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Maybe some people are getting confused between a "remake" of the game and what I consider to be "core features". If you look at it, most sequels are "remakes" in that there are certain features and themes that are repeated again and again. The Elder Scrolls Series, for example, has magic and creatures that you fight. Skyrim (#5) has many similarities with Oblivion (#4) but Skyrim is not a remake of Oblivion. If Bethesda removed magic and open world, then I would say that the new Skyrim would not be an Elder Scrolls game anymore, just as many think Sims 4 is not a Sims game. You can't remove certain core features that define a series. And yes core features can be added. 3-D Open world was added to Elder Scrolls with Morrowind (#3) and has stayed since. Should that essential feature be removed, Elder Scrolls fans would be outraged, perhaps as much as Sims fans are outraged over Sims 4.
@sparkfairy1 You don't seem to be able to see the problem or the difference from earlier Sims games. But the way that I see it is:
Sims 1: A completely new concept. The game had primitive graphics and not much content. So it was cheap to make. But the supprisingly high sales numbers then caused EA to make a lot of expansions which hadn't been planned. They were not easy to make for that reason and they were therefore also difficult to install. They had to be installed in the correct order and sometimes even this didn't work in the first attempt.
Sims 2: The extremely high sales number for TS1 caused EA to make a much bigger game with advanced graphics. This time the game was prepared for expansions and they therefore also became much easier to make and install. Many simmers hated that TS2 was released anyway though because they had used so much money on TS1. So a lot of people hesitated to buy TS2. But the much more advanced graphics and the much more advanced gameplay finally convinced also the remaining simmers to buy the game.
Sims 3: EA knew the problem with a lot of simmers hesitating to buy a new game from TS2. So they included the open world to convince people - even though the technology wasn't really ready for that step. The open world limited the number of sims in each game and it made subhoods almost impossible. Most of the EPs were therefore released with new buildings which couldn't really be placed in the world where people already played. So usually people had to start a new game for each EP.
Sims 4: The problem about including something new which could convince people to buy the game early and for the full price had become bigger than ever before. There were no longer really any opportunity to just add hugely improved graphics, aging, a more open world or something like that. They just had to find something new - but what should it be?
I don't really know what they should have done. My best proposal would have been gradually increased heights as the children grow up and a possibility to make Sims of different heights as adults. But I think that this would have been nearly impossible to make for technological reasons. At least unless EA would make a game with much higher minimum requirements which probably would cost EA a lot of customers.
So they consider to make it as an online multiplayer game. But ended with emotions, multitasking and an improved build mode instead. How would you have made the game if it still should have enough convincing new content for EA to use in their PR campaigns?
EA hasn't respected The Sims game since the beginning, they thought it will be a casual game that they can make a profit off and forget about it. The game garnered a huge fan base and some of the executives resented it because the game wasn't considered a respected game in the gaming community. That was explicit when Sims 3 was released and the executives tried to turn it into a RPG type game without much to the sandbox part that the fans really loved. Trying to bring more RPG players. They tried the online aspects of the game to bring in the MMO players. EA has been trying to shut out the people that was playing the game as a dollhouse and dress up (EA terms of the players) for a while, and I think they are happy this game has turned into something that will get the long time fans shut out. I felt that since the release of Sims 4.
Just read on the release of Sims 3 and see what I am talking about. So many posts and reviews stated the changes that was afforded how things were changed in Sims 3 and the fallout behind it. I don't think the executives thought there could ever be such a fan base for the Sims and they are now taking it for granted. Just there motto that simmers will accept anything Sims is not working out as they thought it would this time. Shame on them.
Nothing to see. I don't even care about the forums.
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
At this point, I have given up hope. EA believes that PC gaming is dying, so they are not willing to invest in PC-exclusive titles anymore. This is why TS4 received such a limited budget despite the franchise making hundreds of millions of dollars. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the struggles of SimCity and TS4 have done nothing but reinforce this view within EA, which is why they did the Maxis layoffs and rolled the studio into their mobile division.
Since Get Together is primarily made up of recycled assets from the base-game development (Like Windenburg), I have a feeling that we are not going to get a full EP lifecycle and we will not get a proper Sims 5. The direction of the franchise seems to be pointed directly at cellphones and tablets.
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
Hmm, that doesn't look too large tbh. Most of those people are testers, family members, and umbrella workers who do work for multiple games simultaneously. The actual development team is fairly small. Take a look at the team sizes for other blockbuster AAA games.
Comments
LOL, yeah I'm not sure how someone comes to the conclusion that your sims just poofing out of existence when they go to work/school is better than having a rabbit hole in the world. The problem with rabbit holes wasn't the physical building being on the map, it was the fact I wanted to go to those places and actively play the game. I wanted all the careers to be active careers this time around. In fact the poofing, to me, is far worse than having a rabbit hole.
loved spooky stuff though!
Ummm - you have that very confused. First of all Rotational play and SP do not go together. SP is what they depend on in games without rotational play. True Rotational play is where the player controls all the households of the game with no SP like in Sims 2. Sims 3 has SP and no real rotational play as it should. Yes over the years of Sims 3 production the devs did make a stab at adding more capability of playing more than a single house hold but was never true rotational play like in Sims 2 where nothing changes in the game except what the player controls with ZERO SP. Sims 4 had almost no SP - which has been tweaked to a degree - so this is no longer Sims 2 style of true rotational play as it was the day the game came out. Now it is simply something else.
"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.....
Without the buildings - before them anyway in Sims 1 and 2 - we called it teleporting. It was rather exciting and mystifying. But plop they put down a building that took up a lot of space and took away the mystery and it became rabbit holes - you know like rabbits disappearing in a hole in the ground and lost the rather romantic ideal of teleportation.
Sims 2 even had teleporters as one of the high end reward objects that further enhanced the appeal of teleporting, never mind many other delights that often resulted in a cute little cut scenes to occupy us as our sims tumbled to where ever.
Sims 1 had actual holes we could place on the ground in Making Magic for sims to disappear into and come up in one of the Magic Town spots. It was rather like magic took one tiny little square and was rather cool to see them jump in a hole and pop up like a rabbit at the other end from another hole. It was fun - not a big and bulky building which we could not make our selves never mind fix it up with out the game acting like we had stabbed it in the heart for wanting to put something in the other wise empty space. Yet people kept trying. The least they could have done was make the rabbit hole compatiable to being dressed up inside with out the game going into a tizzy over it. Do not even get me started on trying to combine other game buildings with any of those rabbit holes. But those are neither here nor there - well they are there back in sims 3 - and no longer the issues. We have bigger fish to fry - like the whole darn game now.
"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.....
Unfortunately the lol button has gone.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
I still play Sims 1, Sims 2, and Sims 3, and enjoy Sims 4. I have played the Sims series since I bought Livin Large and The Sims in my 20s. Would I like more features and life-stages? Of course. But their absence doesn't wreck the game for me. After playing Sims 1, Sims 4 is still more advanced than Sims 1, but it doesn't have its nostalgic charm. Unlike some, I haven't had game-wrecking bugs in Sims 4. Sims 4 is more comparable to Sims 2, only all its expansion packs have not been released yet.
Like many others my age (I am in my mid-40s) I grew up on Space Invaders and Pacman, so perhaps I am easily amused. I don't insist on 64-bit games, even though my notebook computer is capable of 64 bit. I actually bought SimCity 2013 when the price had gone down just to see if it was that bad. It was ok as a casual game (and I do play casual games) but the single-player feature (which is what really sold me on the game) had some bugs. I don't buy MMO games, because the ones I have bought went under soon afterwards, resulting in my money being wasted.
Sparkfairy, the article is well-written, but it is biased towards those who dislike Sims 4. Since you are one of those who dislike the game and you wrote the article, this is understandable. I don't know whether the number of Sims series fans who like Sims 4 is in the majority, or the number of Sims series fans who dislike Sims 4 is in the majority, but each group likes to claim the majority for their side in order to marginalize the other side. The article barely acknowledged that some Sims fans actually enjoy playing Sims 4, instead focusing on the reasons some people dislike Sims 4. Certainly there are valid reasons for disliking Sims 4, but there are also valid reasons for liking Sims 4 as well.
I'm happy you like the game-and like I said within the article I hope you continue to do so for years to come! However EA are letting everyone down by not dealing with these issues because it's preventing the full potential for the game-of all the customers they threw out with their decisions they have huge untapped resources of profits. And instead of at least trying to deal with the issue they act like their customers who say they aren't happy are unreasonable. That's not fair-people who have supported them for up to fifteen years like us deserve to be treated better than that by EA. Without all of us supporting the sims it wouldn't have got as far as it has-we are all a part of simming history.
I never claimed any minority/majority. Never have, never will. Because it doesn't matter-I know that EA are turning away investment in the game by refusing to address issues-which in the end will affect the production of this game and the amount of access to further development funds for the game you enjoy. With so much restructuring, cutting so many costs and moving Maxis under the mobile division doesn't give me a good feeling. Because match it with the relentless silence towards us, the attempts to excuse themselves from dealing with the customers they upset and the complete denial anything is wrong it looks like the desire to do something isn't there.
I am genuinely happy for you that you like the game-obviously it caters well enough to your tastes in the game. But I can't play with your enjoyment of the game-I need to be catered to too-and if they have no intention of giving me the tools to enjoy the game it was wrong to promise things they won't deliver and take my money. If they can't or won't cater they should be offering recompense to those who bought based on false promises.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Of course EA's PR department is going to gloss over customer complaints, just like any other good PR department would. It would be nice if they promised us what the game doesn't currently offer (ie toddlers, family play etc) but only if they actually delivered everything everyone was expecting. From reading the forums, I know (and hopefully the developers do too) that an object toddler would not be enough to satisfy most family players. Yet programming-wise that would probably be the easiest to do, and a modder could probably create an object toddler as an independent object except that babies would not grow into these modded "toddlers", nor would these modded toddlers ever grow up.
So a lot more time will have to be spent on developing toddlers, and hopefully the longer they take the better they will be when they come out. I will join you in being disappointed if they never implement toddlers in Sims 4, but haven't given up, and in the meantime I play single Sims and couples. Besides, I don't play often enough to juggle multiple-Sim households with more than 4 sims in the household. I have never much cared for time-management games, once past a certain level in the game. When I miss toddlers, I simply go back to playing Sims 2 or Sims 3 or Sims Freeplay. Even if I didn't like Sims 4, I wouldn't expect any money back past 30 days after I bought the game, just like you cannot return a CD/DVD that has been opened except for the same title if you are lucky. I see nothing wrong in going back to old games that you have enjoyed. Just because the next game in the series comes out, doesn't have to mean you get rid of the previous game, unless you need hard drive space or shelf space, or the game stops working on your new computer.
I will agree that the trend to push consumers away from PC games towards tablet/phone games is alarming. I do have an iPad mini, but sometimes I just like having a larger screen, and more depth to the games. I don't have cellular on my iPad so I don't play it everywhere, just where there is WiFi, and sometimes I don't take it with me because I don't want to forget it (like to the grocery store). My cell phone is old school, only capable of talk, text, and a text web browser.
EA also has a bad record of buying independent studios (like Maxis before EA acquired it), milking the product for all its worth and then defunding their products when they think they have had a good run, or want to invest in something else. The studio that produced Skylines had better watch out.
I understand that marketing job is to make the game look good. But from a customer service standpoint they could zip their lips about making comments about those making complaints as tight as they do about the missing content-instead of aggravating the situation further by creating a narrative about people who have been among some of their biggest supporters over the years. That right there is why I eventually stopped believing in the team or EA-I spent a lot of time advocating for patience and benefit of the doubt before that. Then to see comments making out that the issue lies with consumers who have been very loyal really showed me how little they value their customer base.
Customers who have supported them for up to fifteen years don't just become unreasonable. They know how upset some customers feel-and instead of even attempting to fix or at least apply some compassion and communicate about it they've avoided the issue completely. They know it's made things steadily worse, but still they plough on ignoring it with us-but coming out with little comments about customers who are disappointed and making it an even worse experience for those involved.
What's ironic is I bought TS4 expecting that Maxis would have learnt big lessons from SC2013 and how to deal with their customers. I feel foolish because actually this feels worse! At least with SC2013 Lucy Bradshaw came to the forums to talk to the customers-and they attempted to make up for went wrong by offering a gesture of goodwill of another game for free to tide those customers over who were having such issues.
I don't think there's anything wrong with playing older games either. But I do think there is with taking money for TS4 and expecting customers to wait years for big holes to be fixed in the base while they churn out further paid content. They should have a dedicated team to finish the base and reward those of us who invested early despite concerns.
I'm well aware of EA'S MO with studios. I was a huge fan of Bullfrog who was swallowed up by EA and disbanded, disregarding some of my favourite games too.
I have been around since before the sims with Maxis. I have supported them for a great many years, and I find it highly disrespectful that my loyalty isn't appreciated and to see comments attempting to blame their supporters for feelings of disappointment.
None of us were responsible for development. EA made the mistake for Olympus but essentially we are all paying a high cost because of this-and I don't think that's right. I think they should be diverting some money towards the sims studio like how they diverted some of the sims funds to other games in trouble (because not having enough budget and time to finish the base is trouble) because I think it's the least the customers deserve.
As for mobile. If they take the sims mobile only I will walk away without a doubt. Not interested. I want an in depth PC experience. If EA don't want to furnish us with that I will take my money elsewhere. The sims is the perfect concept for me-but on PC. I've played enough sims mobile games and console versions to know they don't hold a torch to the traditional PC versions.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
There were also a lot of gamers who loved their games on the Commodore 64 or the Commodore Amiga. They thought also that they had paid a lot of money to support their games on those platforms. But the game companies stopped making games for those computers anyway even though a lot of people didn't like it. Just like you don't like changes to the Sims games.
The Sims series belongs to EA. So they have every right to do with the series whatever they want. There isn't a thing we can do about it. You would apparently like them to just make more Sims games which were very similar to TS3. But EA's problem was that such a game wouldn't sell nearly as well as TS3 did because most simmers already owned TS3. A new basegame in the same style therefore wouldn't sell very well at all. People would just go on playing TS3 and wait to see if TS4 finally would get some interesting expansions after a year or two. But EA would have had to stop the series before that because the sales numbers had been too low to finance more expansions.
Therefore EA just had to change the game (or stop the series for good). I don't like many of the ways this was done either. But to do it in a better way was actually very difficult. None of us would have liked it to be an online game instead. But we wouldn't really have liked any other major changes either. That was EA's dilemma because they just had to change the game to avoid unacceptable low sales numbers.
TS5 seems to me to be nearly impossible because it can't be very similar to neither TS3 nor TS4. They have to do something else. Hopefully technological improvements will help them to find a better way.
I don't fear the mobile versions of the game like you do because there are much better options for renewing the game on those platforms. Don't forget that we are several years out in the future when we discuss this. At that time mobile gaming will have changed because tablets will have much more power and memory and they will probably have bigger screens too. Maybe they will even run a future version of Windows and have more power than PCs have today.
I don't believe the sims was in trouble with low sales. If sales suffered it's because they made so many mistakes around creating TS4, not realising that sims fans don't have to accept lower quality just because there is no competition-because they have the option of old games or not buying at all. They didn't expect the sims customers to know better and expect more of them. We all saw the adverts for the subscription service which ties in with the themes of the game packs. There's a reason they didn't go ahead with that subscription service. EA don't easily give up chances for monetising every way they can. They knew the backlash about the base would only get worse with a feature like that!
I don't 'fear' mobile. I'm just not interested. There's a big difference. And if you had read my posts previously you would see that feeling is based on very poor experiences around EA mobile games. I've owned a few of their apps-and of all the apps I use generally they are the least reliable and the issues take forever to be resolved.
Yes the sims belongs to EA. But treating people who have been loyal to them for many years poorly reflects very badly on them. Especially when they didn't communicate that some customers weren't welcome and made promises to those customers they haven't kept in order to keep their money! They didn't mind taking the money from us.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Sims 1: A completely new concept. The game had primitive graphics and not much content. So it was cheap to make. But the supprisingly high sales numbers then caused EA to make a lot of expansions which hadn't been planned. They were not easy to make for that reason and they were therefore also difficult to install. They had to be installed in the correct order and sometimes even this didn't work in the first attempt.
Sims 2: The extremely high sales number for TS1 caused EA to make a much bigger game with advanced graphics. This time the game was prepared for expansions and they therefore also became much easier to make and install. Many simmers hated that TS2 was released anyway though because they had used so much money on TS1. So a lot of people hesitated to buy TS2. But the much more advanced graphics and the much more advanced gameplay finally convinced also the remaining simmers to buy the game.
Sims 3: EA knew the problem with a lot of simmers hesitating to buy a new game from TS2. So they included the open world to convince people - even though the technology wasn't really ready for that step. The open world limited the number of sims in each game and it made subhoods almost impossible. Most of the EPs were therefore released with new buildings which couldn't really be placed in the world where people already played. So usually people had to start a new game for each EP.
Sims 4: The problem about including something new which could convince people to buy the game early and for the full price had become bigger than ever before. There were no longer really any opportunity to just add hugely improved graphics, aging, a more open world or something like that. They just had to find something new - but what should it be?
I don't really know what they should have done. My best proposal would have been gradually increased heights as the children grow up and a possibility to make Sims of different heights as adults. But I think that this would have been nearly impossible to make for technological reasons. At least unless EA would make a game with much higher minimum requirements which probably would cost EA a lot of customers.
So they consider to make it as an online multiplayer game. But ended with emotions, multitasking and an improved build mode instead. How would you have made the game if it still should have enough convincing new content for EA to use in their PR campaigns?
Just read on the release of Sims 3 and see what I am talking about. So many posts and reviews stated the changes that was afforded how things were changed in Sims 3 and the fallout behind it. I don't think the executives thought there could ever be such a fan base for the Sims and they are now taking it for granted. Just there motto that simmers will accept anything Sims is not working out as they thought it would this time. Shame on them.
PoppySims Archive
InnaLisa Pose Archive
Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
I ♡ Pudding
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Since Get Together is primarily made up of recycled assets from the base-game development (Like Windenburg), I have a feeling that we are not going to get a full EP lifecycle and we will not get a proper Sims 5. The direction of the franchise seems to be pointed directly at cellphones and tablets.
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
Hmm, that doesn't look too large tbh. Most of those people are testers, family members, and umbrella workers who do work for multiple games simultaneously. The actual development team is fairly small. Take a look at the team sizes for other blockbuster AAA games.