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The reason why The Sims 4 isn't as good.
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Vampires that sparkle ALL THE TIME?
Werewolves that are just ordinary people wearing a silly costume?
Witches that look and behave like something from a kids cartoon?
My lots in 3 are about as crowded as my lots in Sims 4 now by the way (yes, I'm quite tireless where it comes to underlining that every time people bring that up as an excuse for loading screen galore, fake backdrops and uncontrollable sims). Not when I played the game in 2010 but they are now, nowadays computers apparently can handle The Sims and an open world much better. A difference is that in 4 sims will seek each others company more, which in nightclubs is great, but on other venues I don't like it. When my couple is romancing together with a cup of coffee in a cafe, I really don't want four NPC's in a row to join them.
I doubt by the way if Sims 3 really demands that much more from your pc than Sims 4 does, I for one couldn't play 4 on my previous computer. I had to buy a new one (and it handled Sims 3 on highest settings). I was playing Sims 2 a couple of days ago by the way, and when I sent my sim to a venue, there was nobody there. Sims started coming in as soon as I had arrived (I remember this being a disturbing ingredient for people of open world as well, even when open world means every sim spawning there that was closer to the venue than your sim will arrive sooner). In the end, and I waited for a rather long time, there were four visitors (and my sim). I sometimes wonder, now that I play three games simultaneously, whether people aren't judging the games through pink or muddy glasses.
Again to mention again, sims 4 was rushed prior to release because of the sudden scrap of Sims 4 Olympus. So it explains the empty game play simmers experienced. Should it really be an excuse? I don't think so, but taking that into account it isn't really fair either. I don't know, Sims 4 seems to have run smoother on my old computer than sims 3 ever had.
The Sims 4 in itself is fun and enjoyable, but I just can not help thinking back to its predecessors, and how every time, over and over again Maxis just completely fails to incorporate the good of their previous games, but work on the bad stuff. Hell, now it's to the point where the bad stuff is just left out completely instead of being improved
Oh, and no. I'm not hating. I'm just a very, very cynical and realistic consumer who happens to look at the technical and marketing side of things, and I can tell you right now it's still concerning, especially when comparing the current state of the game to the franchise as a whole.
As a person who wants to call themselves an independent game developer, I know the last thing you want to do is create a certain mechanic for a game, then decide it doesn't work, so you leave it out completely in the sequel, leaving everyone bummed out and disappointed unless you come up with something equally as good. I'm of the opinion that you should always consider improving instead of tossing it, even if time and budget don't completely allow it. It'll make up for itself in the end. It's risky, especially for small companies and individuals. Which EA isn't at all.
Which brings me back to The Sims 4. The game runs great, looks great, the Sims look great, building is solid and very intuitive, but then the rest of the game is shallow and poorly thought out, whereas The Sims 3 looked quite bad, sounded quite bad, and was nearly unplayable when using all content made for the game, but its core game play was pretty solid.
1. When the Sims 2 basegame was released in 2004 it was very hard to even find a laptop which was able to run the game. Therefore everybody recommended a stationary PC for TS2.
2. When the Sims 3 was released in 2009 it still could not run on many ordinary computers the minimum requirement for the video card was "128 MB Graphics card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0"
3. When the Sims 4 was released in 2014 most newer computers could run it and the minimu requirements for the video card wasn't much higher than it had been for the Sims 3 five years earlier: "128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0" But this is much lower than for almost all other big games from 2014.
So relatively EA has lowered the minimum requirements a lot (and you will see the same if you compare other minimum requirements like the required processor or the minimum amount of ram). Other games have increased the minimum requirements much more from 2004 to 2014 than the the three versions of the Sims did and one of the reasons that the minimum requirements didn't increase more is the small neighborhoods and worlds in TS4 and the fact that the Sims 4 world is only semiopen. Also remember that EA wants to keep the minimum requirements just as low even after a lot of expansions have been added to the game because all those expansions probably wouldn't sell nearly as well if some of the simmers couldn't run them without buying a new computer for the game. (EA's support would also have an impossible job helping people with problems which only could be solved by giving people their money back.)
@JoAnne65: I still use cc even with CASt in sims 3. I don't think cc should replace it in sims 4 either though. I might not like what colors the cc creators chose and I don't know how to do recolors on my own.
AFAIK, the vampires in TS3 were never intended to sparkle like that. I recall @SimGuruGrant explicitly state they were avoiding modeling vampires after the book Twilight -- including their sparkling.
Supernaturals added the sparkles, and I believe that was made by the other development studio (there were 2 for the majority of TS3's lifespan). I think this is just one, tiny example of the long list of negatives having 2 separate studios work on TS3 came with.
Personally I like TS3's art style much better than TS4's. The sims in 3 are bad, but I've always used cc for them ever since TS2. TS4 sims would look a lot better without the plastic skin, hair, and clothes that overall make them look so bad. And their fuzzy look on lower graphics make their skin look like dough. Then the whole world is plastic and without much texture. I really don't get why people think the graphics are so much better in 4.
Add in the cartoony animations and the whole effect is quite bad, IMO, unless you only like your sims to be cartoony or if you mostly just use poses and take pictures using high graphics settings and lots of cc. As for building, the trade-off for the easy building was the apparent removal of many features so an even trade-off at best.
TS4 also has some issues in terms of how it runs for some people, and don't even get me started on the awful gameplay and poor design decisions like constant sim spawning and culling and the relationship decay and culling. What kind of sims game gets rid of your sim's relationships? SMH. So I do agree with that part at least.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
You don't like Witchy Poo? lol That witch is probably better than the good fairy witch we will get.
That is limiting creativity and CC in TS3 is recolorable as well in-game.
IKR?
"Never liked story progression, I'm glad it's out, I hated TS3 because of that!" *doesn't even realise it could be turned off*.
You have a good point. I notice a huge difference from Sims in gameplay in my game and Sims in their trailers. I want to know how they film those Sims in the trailers when lighting in the game inside a house is horrible and makes many skins look greenish, sickly and or yellowing. And their lips always have that bright little white thin line between the lips, (which I assume is from their teeth) but it makes the mouth look horrible like a bad highlight much like the one around Sims when you mouse over them. I see it in all the pictures people post here, and or their sickly looking Sim due to lighting inside houses. But Maxis somehow skirts around this when filming for a trailer. I wonder what cheats they use to make the over all color of indoors look better.
White curtain is a beige yellow, etc. It really gets on my eyes' nerves.
ETA: Or they film most things indoors with roof off not placed to start with?
Base game features that were supposed to be included but weren't.
Really? By "safe to say," you mean you have official proof? Would love to see it. The way TS4 made babies as creepy plastic-looking crying furniture, and apparently cannot make toddlers at all, it's going to be fascinating to see how dynamic pets are. I expect them -- if they come at all -- to be not much more than stuffed toys. Or wait, maybe the game will cull out all children to make room for pets.
I'm not assuming anything this time around. Just because we had something before it doesn't mean we'll see it again in this version.
There hasn't been an EP released since TS2 started that didn't have a supernatural. Where are they this time? I sure didn't see one in GT and the alien abductions .....well you know how that went.
Even if babies weren't allowed to leave the house or very minimal..I could deal as long as they were human. I will never understand why they thought object babies were good enough to sell to the public in their current state. Babies should have been a priority over pools. The least they could give us for making our sims wear those dumb smiles all the time is human babies.
Oh, OK, "possible," then. An opinion. Gotcha.