> @Glic2003 said:
> People have been asking for this since release day; producers already said it's not gonna happen.
>
> Here's the quote from SimguruMax (again) explaining why:
>
> "Loading screens: this was done primarily to accomodate multitasking. We build a highly complex graph of all the objects in the world and their connectivity (you can see our GDC talk about this online). Doing searches over this graph is computationally-intensive and proportional to the size of the graph. This is one of the main reasons that you cannot go to your neighbor's house without a loading screen - we couldn't afford to have their entire house and your entire house loaded at once. Keep in mind that people can create some huge houses with dozens and dozens of chairs and tables and stuff like that which all involve a bunch of nodes (different slot types for carryables, etc.)."
This explanation somewhat confuses me because when I look through the windows of my neighbours' homes, all the furniture is rendered inside. Even in the Sims 3, you couldn't see inside your neighbours' houses until your own Sim walked up to the front door and rang the bell (if the neighbour was inside to answer). I don't understand why they couldn't implement that sort of thing this time around.
Think of the graph they are talking about as some kind of big map in Sims' brain, with all the objects they can interact with. The neighbours homes are rendered, the furniture is there, but they are not registered in the map, thus Sims can't use them. Sims don't have enough brain power to handle the bigger map with all the neighbours' items because the bigger the map, the more brain power is required to find something in it. During the loading screen, the game is creating the new map for the new lot you are going to, this process is most likely too long to fit during a knock on a door.
@Neia, I've got a question/thought/whatever, maybe you can let me know if I am on the right track or not.
When a lot (say your home lot) is open/active, all the public space is also active.
Your sims in your house recognize all that is within the public space, sort of like it is an extended back yard, part of their own lot.
I have read where simmers were having issues getting their sims to eat their meals in their own house with a table and chair close by but instead they head to a picnic table or bench in the public space. Kind of like 'this is all mine' *stretches arms out in wide sweeping motions* 'this kingdom here, all that you see, is mine!'
Now, if within that neighborhood, you have three neighboring lots and suddenly they all become open, will everything be seen as belonging to everyone? Would my sim standing in the kitchen of my lowly shack decide that the comfy dining room chairs at the neighbor's house be more suitable? Would my sim be constantly calculating the comfort value of all of the chairs in the whole neighborhood?
I do wish there was something to indicate neighbourhood activity. It does feel very odd not being able to wave to a neighbor when they come home from work/school.
Assuming nothing can be done in terms of loading the entire neighbourhood, even something like a notification that such and such a neighbour has come home - bit like a news feed of neighbourhood activity.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
wouldn't they have to rebuild the whole game to take away these loading screens? This is why I wanted open world back, no loading screen no problem then people wouldn't want ways to avoid them.
@Neia, I've got a question/thought/whatever, maybe you can let me know if I am on the right track or not.
When a lot (say your home lot) is open/active, all the public space is also active.
Your sims in your house recognize all that is within the public space, sort of like it is an extended back yard, part of their own lot.
I have read where simmers were having issues getting their sims to eat their meals in their own house with a table and chair close by but instead they head to a picnic table or bench in the public space. Kind of like 'this is all mine' *stretches arms out in wide sweeping motions* 'this kingdom here, all that you see, is mine!'
Now, if within that neighborhood, you have three neighboring lots and suddenly they all become open, will everything be seen as belonging to everyone? Would my sim standing in the kitchen of my lowly shack decide that the comfy dining room chairs at the neighbor's house be more suitable? Would my sim be constantly calculating the comfort value of all of the chairs in the whole neighborhood?
At the moment Sims are able to recognize what's on the lot, and what's in the public spaces, and on-lot/off-lot have an impact on autonomy. For example, townies can't interact with what's in your house unless you have allowed them in, joggers and passers-by don't go through your garden either, and kids don't run out of the house to play on the pirate ship at the other end of the neighbourhood.
One more thing I have to add, the game is closed right now and they introduce all these culling mechanics! Can you imagine if they open the neighborhoods what kind of culling they will do?
They will go harsher on culling and the game will become just like a soap opera where all characters keep disappearing one after another.
But you see, there are mods that stop culling, and the game essentially runs great. I have no idea what Maxis is so scared about.
One more thing I have to add, the game is closed right now and they introduce all these culling mechanics! Can you imagine if they open the neighborhoods what kind of culling they will do?
They will go harsher on culling and the game will become just like a soap opera where all characters keep disappearing one after another.
But you see, there are mods that stop culling, and the game essentially runs great. I have no idea what Maxis is so scared about.
I have a reasonably specified PC - i7, GTX 770 (2GB VRAM), 32 GB of RAM and I, on occasion, use the larger households and more sims on a lot mods. The more sims on a lot mod allows you to go up to 100 sims.
The most I have ever tried is a household of 16 sims and 40 sims on a lot. I did notice some performance issues - not many. It ran surprisingly well, but some performance glitches were quite noticeable in the parks and other large areas.
I know this is only my own anecdotal evidence, but just throwing it out there
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
I find that the lack of open neighborhoods dampens gameplay tremendously. Who wants to visit a neighbor, much less walk to the park, when the game has to switch to that environment and takes two to three minutes to do so? Ridiculous.
OK just had to pop in here. I have read my comments on the first page that I wrote few months back and I came back to say that today I am even more convinced that the game engine is very weak. Why? the indication is the new relationship culling system.
Every EP added means something has to be culled. The engine is very weak and cannot tolerate significant additions. The gurus and EA have proved it for us with the latest addition of the culling.
This makes the future of the game and packs very uncertain and gloomy. It will mean that the EPs either have to be half baked or underwhelming!
It is sad that the game has potential but it might never reach to it. I would really love to have open neighborhoods and also culling to be removed but I don't think it will happen. Actually I am more certain that only the opposite of what we players want will happen.
See this thread is few months old and OP is talking about the sims culling, but today we have one more form added. As if we never complained, and as if they were never listening! They just don't care.
If what you say is true, the game in fact doesn't have that much potential at all.
Also I don't quite understand what simgurumax said, because in Sims 3 there's also loading involved before being able to enter a house. It's just not a loading screen. Though it is possible, theoretically, in that game of course to send 8 sims to 8 different houses and then they'll all be open. But why not just make that impossible then? That wouldn't really be a sacrifice imo, at least, I'm never in 8 different houses with 8 different sims.
OK just had to pop in here. I have read my comments on the first page that I wrote few months back and I came back to say that today I am even more convinced that the game engine is very weak. Why? the indication is the new relationship culling system.
Every EP added means something has to be culled. The engine is very weak and cannot tolerate significant additions. The gurus and EA have proved it for us with the latest addition of the culling.
This makes the future of the game and packs very uncertain and gloomy. It will mean that the EPs either have to be half baked or underwhelming!
It is sad that the game has potential but it might never reach to it. I would really love to have open neighborhoods and also culling to be removed but I don't think it will happen. Actually I am more certain that only the opposite of what we players want will happen.
See this thread is few months old and OP is talking about the sims culling, but today we have one more form added. As if we never complained, and as if they were never listening! They just don't care.
If what you say is true, the game in fact doesn't have that much potential at all.
Also I don't quite understand what simgurumax said, because in Sims 3 there's also loading involved before being able to enter a house. It's just not a loading screen. Though it is possible, theoratically, in that game of course to send 8 sims to 8 different houses and then they'll all be open. But why not just make that impossible then? That wouldn't really be a sacrifice imo, at least, I'm never in 8 different houses with 8 different sims.
That loading for Sims 3 was just the visuals; the math of which Sims are where was already done.
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
OK just had to pop in here. I have read my comments on the first page that I wrote few months back and I came back to say that today I am even more convinced that the game engine is very weak. Why? the indication is the new relationship culling system.
Every EP added means something has to be culled. The engine is very weak and cannot tolerate significant additions. The gurus and EA have proved it for us with the latest addition of the culling.
This makes the future of the game and packs very uncertain and gloomy. It will mean that the EPs either have to be half baked or underwhelming!
It is sad that the game has potential but it might never reach to it. I would really love to have open neighborhoods and also culling to be removed but I don't think it will happen. Actually I am more certain that only the opposite of what we players want will happen.
See this thread is few months old and OP is talking about the sims culling, but today we have one more form added. As if we never complained, and as if they were never listening! They just don't care.
If what you say is true, the game in fact doesn't have that much potential at all.
Also I don't quite understand what simgurumax said, because in Sims 3 there's also loading involved before being able to enter a house. It's just not a loading screen. Though it is possible, theoratically, in that game of course to send 8 sims to 8 different houses and then they'll all be open. But why not just make that impossible then? That wouldn't really be a sacrifice imo, at least, I'm never in 8 different houses with 8 different sims.
That loading for Sims 3 was just the visuals; the math of which Sims are where was already done.
I think it's more than just the visuals, because there's no way you can enter a house or interact with the items in there without permission of the inhabitant. Not even when you remove the walls (don't ask me how I know but I do ). And you can't have a proper look inside without permission either. The sims are all accounted for of course, but are the 'dozens and dozens of chairs and tables and stuff like that which all involve a bunch of nodes'?
That's true. Each lot was sandboxed. That means that they were not in the active memory or data computations. The only ones who could interact with them were inhabitants. So the lots didn't go into active memory until you, the player, interacted with them by going onto the lot itself or by knocking on the door. You could, say, go into someone's garden and steal their crops and that would trigger the lot into active memory. That doesn't mean the game wasn't tracking what and where, but it wasn't taking up too much processing power, either.
For all its faults, TS3 was quite ambitious in its programming. I think they would have done well to optimize it rather than abandon it. Most problems were caused by memory leaks and it being a 32-bit program. I bet if they made it 64-bit, it wouldn't have had nearly as many problems.
I really don't see them removing the loading screens. I agree with everyone, it truly ruins the immersion, having to see a loading screen just to go next door. I think maybe they can make the loading screen itself look more realistic...instead of a swirling plum bob or whatever it is, maybe they can make a screen in first person view of walking down the street until you reach a front door for residential lots, like this:
And another first person view loading screen of driving down a highway for traveling to commercial lots/other worlds like this:
It shouldn't take too much to come up with a load screen like that. The residential load screen could match the neighborhood appearance. The highway driving one could look like changing scenery. I don't know, just a thought.
The closed world is a complete deal breaker for me in TS4. I thought I could adapt but I can't. For me, I'm not sure how much an open neighborhood would mitigate the issue. The neighborhoods are tiny with about 5 lots each. That's great for the one little area that actually has public venues but doesn't allow me to send some sims out for the day while keeping others at home. It just sort of widens the area I can play a single sim without a loading screen. Not such an improvement for me.
Do I think it's possible? Going the standard developer answer no matter what aspect of IT you work in "Yes, anything is possible with enough time and money."
Do I think they will actually do it? The move to 64 bit has me hopeful. I will admit to a certain tendency towards grasping at straws. I want to love this game as much as I love TS3. I want to play it over and over and over again. I want to mourn it's loss when TS5, 6, 7 and 8 come out. Time will tell I guess. They're having a hard time bringing this game anywhere near its full potential.
That's true. Each lot was sandboxed. That means that they were not in the active memory or data computations. The only ones who could interact with them were inhabitants. So the lots didn't go into active memory until you, the player, interacted with them by going onto the lot itself or by knocking on the door. You could, say, go into someone's garden and steal their crops and that would trigger the lot into active memory. That doesn't mean the game wasn't tracking what and where, but it wasn't taking up too much processing power, either.
For all its faults, TS3 was quite ambitious in its programming. I think they would have done well to optimize it rather than abandon it. Most problems were caused by memory leaks and it being a 32-bit program. I bet if they made it 64-bit, it wouldn't have had nearly as many problems.
Hear! Hear! That's it exactly. Sims 3 was really ambitious. I think that they should have gone back and fixed the code and made it 64 bit or offered two versions like we have now. That would have been wild. Like I said before a truly optimized version of Sims 3 called Sims 4 would have been great. I'm playing Sims 3 these days with Overwatch running and I still have a blast with Island Paradise.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain
I really don't see them removing the loading screens. I agree with everyone, it truly ruins the immersion, having to see a loading screen just to go next door. I think maybe they can make the loading screen itself look more realistic...instead of a swirling plum bob or whatever it is, maybe they can make a screen in first person view of walking down the street until you reach a front door for residential lots, like this:
And another first person view loading screen of driving down a highway for traveling to commercial lots/other worlds like this:
It shouldn't take too much to come up with a load screen like that. The residential load screen could match the neighborhood appearance. The highway driving one could look like changing scenery. I don't know, just a thought.
They used to have the Sims animation in the base game. Now they removed it with a boring swirling plumbob. I can only guess who decide to have this because the Sims animation is much simpler and in tune with the all simple white concept of Sims 4 than that stupid epileptic swirling plumbob.
One more thing I have to add, the game is closed right now and they introduce all these culling mechanics! Can you imagine if they open the neighborhoods what kind of culling they will do?
They will go harsher on culling and the game will become just like a soap opera where all characters keep disappearing one after another.
But you see, there are mods that stop culling, and the game essentially runs great. I have no idea what Maxis is so scared about.
Thats true, the only explanation I can have is that they made the game and they know how fragile it is. It might blow up or something
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
One more thing I have to add, the game is closed right now and they introduce all these culling mechanics! Can you imagine if they open the neighborhoods what kind of culling they will do?
They will go harsher on culling and the game will become just like a soap opera where all characters keep disappearing one after another.
But you see, there are mods that stop culling, and the game essentially runs great. I have no idea what Maxis is so scared about.
Thats true, the only explanation I can have is that they made the game and they know how fragile it is. It might blow up or something
the big problem lie on the game "requeriments:
What are the PC minimum system requirements for The Sims 4? REQUIRED: Internet connection required for product activation.
OS: Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1
PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent) MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM
HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only
VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better
SOUND CARD: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
DIRECTX: DirectX 9.0c compatible
INPUT: Keyboard and Mouse
the game was designed to run on potatoes and too old machines then this make obvious which they must make a "cra p" game if they main target public are peoples which can't afford to pay to have a "medium range desktop.
here the tecnology they are aiming with this game
With the Sims 3, HomeOpener basically flagged every home in a town to be accessible - it basically just forced them open which meant the LOD system that was hiding everything was basically bypassed and any throttling of the simulation engine of those lots was potentially deactivated. It's been a while since I used HomeOpener, so my memory is a little sketchy - I think that your Sim didn't even need to be on the lot - you could simply move the camera to any house in a town and see the simulation engine running unthrottled inside, as though you were looking inside your own Sim's home.
In TS4 the engine must have a trigger for an interior to be opened - the point being, what happens when you force it on two (or more) lots?
A player Sim arriving at a lot potentially triggers a flag of some sort for that lot to 'open' - therefore can it not be set when the Sim is not even on the lot?
TS3 could handle the simulation engine fully running on every lot in a world when it was not meant to (because it was designed to hide the that fact that it could - the limit being the default number of Sims you could send in different directions to different lots) - forcing it to do so didn't seem to incur any penalties - the LOD system would still protect the rendering (baring in mind you are rendering a world as opposed to TS4 rendering a neighbourhood).
RF made it very clear that she feels the closed system is the best. IIRC, she thinks that an open neighborhood felt less like the Sims and more like GTA (no, I am not kidding). I have no clue why she feels closed neighborhood = connected with our sims/open neighborhood = no connection, but then again, I have no clue why the team made a lot of the decisions they made.
I'm hoping that was just spin But as it is, that interview killed my hopes for Sims 5 being open.
I really don't see them removing the loading screens. I agree with everyone, it truly ruins the immersion, having to see a loading screen just to go next door. I think maybe they can make the loading screen itself look more realistic...instead of a swirling plum bob or whatever it is, maybe they can make a screen in first person view of walking down the street until you reach a front door for residential lots, like this:
And another first person view loading screen of driving down a highway for traveling to commercial lots/other worlds like this:
It shouldn't take too much to come up with a load screen like that. The residential load screen could match the neighborhood appearance. The highway driving one could look like changing scenery. I don't know, just a thought.
They used to have the Sims animation in the base game. Now they removed it with a boring swirling plumbob. I can only guess who decide to have this because the Sims animation is much simpler and in tune with the all simple white concept of Sims 4 than that stupid epileptic swirling plumbob.
Agreed. The original loading screen fit more the game concept than the current swirling plumbob.
Comments
Think of the graph they are talking about as some kind of big map in Sims' brain, with all the objects they can interact with. The neighbours homes are rendered, the furniture is there, but they are not registered in the map, thus Sims can't use them. Sims don't have enough brain power to handle the bigger map with all the neighbours' items because the bigger the map, the more brain power is required to find something in it. During the loading screen, the game is creating the new map for the new lot you are going to, this process is most likely too long to fit during a knock on a door.
When a lot (say your home lot) is open/active, all the public space is also active.
Your sims in your house recognize all that is within the public space, sort of like it is an extended back yard, part of their own lot.
I have read where simmers were having issues getting their sims to eat their meals in their own house with a table and chair close by but instead they head to a picnic table or bench in the public space. Kind of like 'this is all mine' *stretches arms out in wide sweeping motions* 'this kingdom here, all that you see, is mine!'
Now, if within that neighborhood, you have three neighboring lots and suddenly they all become open, will everything be seen as belonging to everyone? Would my sim standing in the kitchen of my lowly shack decide that the comfy dining room chairs at the neighbor's house be more suitable? Would my sim be constantly calculating the comfort value of all of the chairs in the whole neighborhood?
I do wish there was something to indicate neighbourhood activity. It does feel very odd not being able to wave to a neighbor when they come home from work/school.
Assuming nothing can be done in terms of loading the entire neighbourhood, even something like a notification that such and such a neighbour has come home - bit like a news feed of neighbourhood activity.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
At the moment Sims are able to recognize what's on the lot, and what's in the public spaces, and on-lot/off-lot have an impact on autonomy. For example, townies can't interact with what's in your house unless you have allowed them in, joggers and passers-by don't go through your garden either, and kids don't run out of the house to play on the pirate ship at the other end of the neighbourhood.
But you see, there are mods that stop culling, and the game essentially runs great. I have no idea what Maxis is so scared about.
I have a reasonably specified PC - i7, GTX 770 (2GB VRAM), 32 GB of RAM and I, on occasion, use the larger households and more sims on a lot mods. The more sims on a lot mod allows you to go up to 100 sims.
The most I have ever tried is a household of 16 sims and 40 sims on a lot. I did notice some performance issues - not many. It ran surprisingly well, but some performance glitches were quite noticeable in the parks and other large areas.
I know this is only my own anecdotal evidence, but just throwing it out there
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Also I don't quite understand what simgurumax said, because in Sims 3 there's also loading involved before being able to enter a house. It's just not a loading screen. Though it is possible, theoretically, in that game of course to send 8 sims to 8 different houses and then they'll all be open. But why not just make that impossible then? That wouldn't really be a sacrifice imo, at least, I'm never in 8 different houses with 8 different sims.
That loading for Sims 3 was just the visuals; the math of which Sims are where was already done.
For all its faults, TS3 was quite ambitious in its programming. I think they would have done well to optimize it rather than abandon it. Most problems were caused by memory leaks and it being a 32-bit program. I bet if they made it 64-bit, it wouldn't have had nearly as many problems.
And another first person view loading screen of driving down a highway for traveling to commercial lots/other worlds like this:
It shouldn't take too much to come up with a load screen like that. The residential load screen could match the neighborhood appearance. The highway driving one could look like changing scenery. I don't know, just a thought.
Do I think it's possible? Going the standard developer answer no matter what aspect of IT you work in "Yes, anything is possible with enough time and money."
Do I think they will actually do it? The move to 64 bit has me hopeful. I will admit to a certain tendency towards grasping at straws. I want to love this game as much as I love TS3. I want to play it over and over and over again. I want to mourn it's loss when TS5, 6, 7 and 8 come out. Time will tell I guess. They're having a hard time bringing this game anywhere near its full potential.
Hear! Hear! That's it exactly. Sims 3 was really ambitious. I think that they should have gone back and fixed the code and made it 64 bit or offered two versions like we have now. That would have been wild. Like I said before a truly optimized version of Sims 3 called Sims 4 would have been great. I'm playing Sims 3 these days with Overwatch running and I still have a blast with Island Paradise.
― Mark Twain
They used to have the Sims animation in the base game. Now they removed it with a boring swirling plumbob. I can only guess who decide to have this because the Sims animation is much simpler and in tune with the all simple white concept of Sims 4 than that stupid epileptic swirling plumbob.
Thats true, the only explanation I can have is that they made the game and they know how fragile it is. It might blow up or something
the big problem lie on the game "requeriments: the game was designed to run on potatoes and too old machines then this make obvious which they must make a "cra p" game if they main target public are peoples which can't afford to pay to have a "medium range desktop.
here the tecnology they are aiming with this game
With the Sims 3, HomeOpener basically flagged every home in a town to be accessible - it basically just forced them open which meant the LOD system that was hiding everything was basically bypassed and any throttling of the simulation engine of those lots was potentially deactivated. It's been a while since I used HomeOpener, so my memory is a little sketchy - I think that your Sim didn't even need to be on the lot - you could simply move the camera to any house in a town and see the simulation engine running unthrottled inside, as though you were looking inside your own Sim's home.
In TS4 the engine must have a trigger for an interior to be opened - the point being, what happens when you force it on two (or more) lots?
A player Sim arriving at a lot potentially triggers a flag of some sort for that lot to 'open' - therefore can it not be set when the Sim is not even on the lot?
TS3 could handle the simulation engine fully running on every lot in a world when it was not meant to (because it was designed to hide the that fact that it could - the limit being the default number of Sims you could send in different directions to different lots) - forcing it to do so didn't seem to incur any penalties - the LOD system would still protect the rendering (baring in mind you are rendering a world as opposed to TS4 rendering a neighbourhood).
I'm hoping that was just spin
Simstagram: https://www.instagram.com/my_sims_4_pics/
Oh no
Agreed. The original loading screen fit more the game concept than the current swirling plumbob.
There go my dreams of open neighborhood.