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the worst thing about City Living - it will sell like hot cakes

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  • ArlettaArletta Posts: 8,444 Member
    edited October 2016
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    Time and time again, features turn up missing. That's hardly an opinion at all. Even if you were to argue that by some amazing coincidence, EVERY missing feature thusfar is something you hated or didn't care about, the pattern of features missing SHOULD be alarming. You never know when a feature you enjoyed could be the next addition to the missing features list.

    Ok, so let's say, for the sake of argument, I'm alarmed at whatever missing feature...now what happens?

    I don't buy. Somebody else does. Shouting on the forums does nothing, so what do you want to happen?

    (please excuse, headachy, but I'm genuinely curious as to what people's motives are)
  • Renamed2002180839Renamed2002180839 Posts: 3,444 Member
    edited October 2016
    ... it fails to acknowledge the objective truth that there are indeed specific features missing that have been present in EVERY former Sims game and should not be too difficult to include, yet they don't.

    On what objective grounds do you know this? Do you know the point at which the EP's concept becomes financially unsustainable? Do you know which other feature would be given up, resulting in reduced, not increased sales? Do you know how the new pack concepts are performing financially compared to the old ones? Do you know the cost-benefit analysis for the City Living EP?

    Personally, I don't want features to be included if they end up being just a lip-service version of that feature. I want great, fully developed features that meet their potential. If that means a change in add-on structure, bring it on. And that is my opinion. You don't have to share it, but it's just as valid and objective as yours.

    @luthienrising And how do apartments rank in your criteria listed above with this pack? Or festivals for that matter? Or player dictated environment and style? This pack does nothing but pay lip service in all of it's key features to date. We have still not learned much about Lot Traits but that's the last thing to truly have an opportunity to perform and shine and set itself apart as THE key feature of this expansion. And, this pack fits in exactly with how they were described recently by Rachel- broad but not deep. They tried to touch on everything (paying lip service imo) without fully developing any of it which is the "not deep" part she talked about. If what you have just written is true- then you should in fact be the biggest critic of this pack, not it's greatest supporter. None of it is fully developed- it's broad but not deep.

    Apartments rank high with me. What I, personally, need in apartments is a full experience of apartment life, with neighbours, landlords, etc., and with the ability to place multiple households in a building. I'd rather have that than buildability. And I understand why I can't have both. For me, an apartment that functions like an oversized house is "lip service" from a gameplay perspective. This isn't.

    I haven't seen enough on Festivals yet to judge them, but these ones seem designed to provide a variety of experiences and to relate to the urban setting. Haven't seen cause to think they aren't fully developed yet. They seem to bring new kinds of gameplay, a mix of new and old objects, and a variety of experiences that will differentiate them from each other.

    Put together these with basketball and graffiti in particular, and with the neighbourhood range, and this pack strike me as a fully developed city experience. Stuffing in vampires would have cut back on that and probably meant more lame vampires.

    See, I'm of the opinion that we've never, since The Sims Makin' Magic, had a fully developed supernatural lifestate. We've had supernaturals stuffed into other gamepacks, or a ton of them all stuffed into a single EP. And that's the lack of full development that I feel is improved by letting a city pack be a city pack, not a city + vampires pack. Get to Work would have been better served if it had cut Retail off into a separate pack and expanded what it did with the careers (maybe they could have had branches, and been better integrated into the full game) and the Aliens (maybe more could have been done with Sixam, Alien rocketships, etc.), so it would have been a more cohesive pack. As it is, while the Aliens are great, their not as great as they could have been in a pack that was more focused on them, and threw less other things in: there's a relationship between two of the three careers and the Aliens, but none with retail.

    Okay, but build-ability in a game like the Sims is part and parcel of a fully developed feature. If you don't want fine- but it doesn't make the feature any more less developed.

    EDIT (I had to step away from my desk before finishing): @luthienrising I'll go further to say that retail is a good example of this. I like retail just fine- it works for me and does everything in a way I think it should BUT I can still see and SAY that it's not a fully developed feature. Something working just for me but not for many others is not fully developed. Now, while there will always be some- few, very few -people that are not happy with anything, in this case there are numerous people unhappy at worst and just okay with it at best. It's not fully developed, Rachel knew and admitted during the press conference that the EP would be "not deep" and she was being honest. this pack so far does not have any "great, fully developed features". The apartments act the same as the neighborhoods- loading screens and all but with just slight upgrades increasing neighbor to neighbor interactions and a few special effects that act the same as an electrical device going out or the plumbing failing expect on a house wide scale- the means to fix the problem is EXACTLY the same. Do it yourself or call someone to do it. That's it. There's nothing else to them, including the ability to place them anywhere else in the game AND YES, I KNOW you don't mind and will justify any number of limitations placed upon you and your game in your endless quest to influence the people of these forums to love this game and see the "good stuff" underneath the pile of "sorry, you can't do that" memos from EA/MAXIS. Well fine, as you were, but I still call the game as it is- good and bad in a completely honest and eyes wide open manner.
    Post edited by Renamed2002180839 on
  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    But that's an opinion that can be explained. A major trade that Sims 2 and Sims 3 did is that Sims 2 provided superior customization of your town, whereas Sims 3 traded that away for rabbit holes, but in exchange it got story progression and one giant interconnected town instead of lots and loading screens. It's understandable some would like Sims 2 better because if you enjoy customizing your town without having to access a create-a-world tool or the like, Sims 2 is superior.

    What? :D

    TS2 didn't even have a true town.
    It had a map. A 3D map. And yes, you could customize that map.
    It's only purpose was to serve a 3D file cabinet to choose the lot you want to play and give you a mental image of what your complete town should look like if it was an actual world you could travel through.

    Yeah, it's easier to create a representational map of a world that your sims will never travel through than it is to create an actual living world.
    I wouldn't even compare a 3D map maker with a world building tool.

    And what do rabbit holes have to do with trading away customization?
    Rabbit holes came about because creating an open world created a new problem with traditional careers. TS2 sims teleport to hidden rabbitholes when they go off to work. Why on earth would you have your sims teleport to an offscreen location or drive out of town in a world that is supposed to be open? They needed a physical location, but they weren't about to create Ambitions styled careers for all the base game careers, so the rabbit hole was created. All they did was give a physical location to something that used to be off-screen. That's a plus, not a negative.

    The only stupid thing they did was to never make proper community lots out of some career rabbit holes: The grocery store, Spa, the book store, and the bistro. They were career lots, serving double duty as service lots, but simmers expect those to be community lots. That was an unfortunate decision for TS3. I don't mind rabbit holes as career lots, but they should not muddy things with making career/community hybrids.
    The%20Goths.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
  • luthienrisingluthienrising Posts: 37,617 Member
    edited October 2016
    CK213 wrote: »
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    But that's an opinion that can be explained. A major trade that Sims 2 and Sims 3 did is that Sims 2 provided superior customization of your town, whereas Sims 3 traded that away for rabbit holes, but in exchange it got story progression and one giant interconnected town instead of lots and loading screens. It's understandable some would like Sims 2 better because if you enjoy customizing your town without having to access a create-a-world tool or the like, Sims 2 is superior.

    What? :D

    TS2 didn't even have a true town.
    It had a map. A 3D map. And yes, you could customize that map.
    It's only purpose was to serve a 3D file cabinet to choose the lot you want to play and give you a mental image of what your complete town should look like if it was an actual world you could travel through.

    Yeah, it's easier to create a representational map of a world that your sims will never travel through than it is to create an actual living world.
    I wouldn't even compare a 3D map maker with a world building tool.

    And what do rabbit holes have to do with trading away customization?
    Rabbit holes came about because creating an open world created a new problem with traditional careers. TS2 sims teleport to hidden rabbitholes when they go off to work. Why on earth would you have your sims teleport to an offscreen location or drive out of town in a world that is supposed to be open? They needed a physical location, but they weren't about to create Ambitions styled careers for all the base game careers, so the rabbit hole was created. All they did was give a physical location to something that used to be off-screen. That's a plus, not a negative.

    The only plum thing they did was to never make proper community lots out of some career rabbit holes: The grocery store, Spa, the book store, and the bistro. They were career lots, serving double duty as service lots, but simmers expect those to be community lots. That was an unfortunate decision for TS3. I don't mind rabbit holes as career lots, but they should not muddy things with making career/community hybrids.

    For some of us, it was a negative. When a Sim goes out of sight completely, it's a bit of "out of sight, out of mind" - they're just gone for a while now, while I focus on something else (another Sim or, if I'm playing a one-Sim household, trying to see if there's actually enough time to check my email before the workday is suddenly over). When a Sim goes into a Sims 3 rabbithole, it's more "Why are you not letting me in that building with them! You're telling me they're doing this thing, but I can't watch! I can only stare at the outside!" I hated that.
    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.
  • mannannamannanna Posts: 466 Member

    And not everyone wants to buy the same game as we had before, with the same features, for another 5 years after doing it for 15 years before that. Because you know what? If everything returns that we had before? That's what you get. If they want to do that with Sims 5 so you can have your updated Sims 3 (or whatever version you prefer), you're welcome to it. I'm going to buy and enjoy a fresh game. And I'm so sick of being told I shouldn't want that.

    Thank you, I so feel the same way.
  • CinderellimouseCinderellimouse Posts: 19,380 Member
    They certainly know how to get people to buy. One of the most talked about features of this pack is the crafts table with the ability to sell items on your home lot.

    People have been asking for home retail since they excluded it in GTW and now instead of patching something in for those of us who have already spent 40 dollars on a retail pack, they will include a way to sell things on your home lot in this pack, asking for another 40 bucks. It's really effed up.

    Retail in the Sims is hugely important to me. Ever since Open for Business it has been one of my favourite and most used systems. I was incredibly frustrated with TS3 because we were given the consignment store with Ambitions and told that was OFB. I'm not saying the consignment store was bad, it had it's uses, but it was nothing like owning my own retail store like I could in TS2. We fought and fought and fought for OFB features in TS3 and finally the store team listened to us.

    So I was thrilled to have retail so early on in the game with TS4. As someone who uses this feature obsessively, and has used many variations of retail in various Sims games (mods, medieval, TS1, etc) I was very pleased with the retail system as it was. Sure I'd have been happier if it ticked all my retail boxes, there were things I would have liked to have been added, but on the whole it worked well and there were some very nice details.

    Now, one of the things I have been asking for as an addition/improvement to retail in TS4 was a portable market stand type object, so I can start on the bottom rung and work my way up. I dislike buying a whole store right away if I'm doing a rags to riches type story. I'm very pleased they are adding these additional retail features.

    Retail in Open for Business was the main key feature of that pack. The packs sole purpose if you like. Retail in Get to Work was one part of a bigger theme of active work and shared development time with the other careers: doctor; scientist; detective. So of course if you put OFB retail and GTW retail side by side, one will have been more developed than the other. I still fell like they did a very good job with it, considering it was not the sole focus of the pack. Do I think they purposefully held market stalls back to sell them later? Not one bit. I think they responded to the complaints, wishes and requests of players.

    I do not feel it should be patched in. I feel like this suits the theme of City Living because in my city we have a lot of arty students and there is a culture of finding second-hand items and upcycling them. You might think of trendy markets in London like Portobello or Spitalfields where the celebrities go for their vintage pieces too. It fits the theme and does not feel like an afterthought to me.

    Finally, I'm not paying 40 dollars on this one object, I'm also buying apartments, a city world, basketball, festivals, a games console, lot traits, and a whole host of other cool features. But if this pack is not worth it to you then that is your decision to make. I'm not trying to change your opinion, I just have a different one.
  • blueturtleotterblueturtleotter Posts: 867 Member
    edited October 2016
    CK213 wrote: »
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    But that's an opinion that can be explained. A major trade that Sims 2 and Sims 3 did is that Sims 2 provided superior customization of your town, whereas Sims 3 traded that away for rabbit holes, but in exchange it got story progression and one giant interconnected town instead of lots and loading screens. It's understandable some would like Sims 2 better because if you enjoy customizing your town without having to access a create-a-world tool or the like, Sims 2 is superior.

    What? :D

    TS2 didn't even have a true town.
    It had a map. A 3D map. And yes, you could customize that map.
    It's only purpose was to serve a 3D file cabinet to choose the lot you want to play and give you a mental image of what your complete town should look like if it was an actual world you could travel through.

    Yeah, it's easier to create a representational map of a world that your sims will never travel through than it is to create an actual living world.
    I wouldn't even compare a 3D map maker with a world building tool.

    And what do rabbit holes have to do with trading away customization?
    Rabbit holes came about because creating an open world created a new problem with traditional careers. TS2 sims teleport to hidden rabbitholes when they go off to work. Why on earth would you have your sims teleport to an offscreen location or drive out of town in a world that is supposed to be open? They needed a physical location, but they weren't about to create Ambitions styled careers for all the base game careers, so the rabbit hole was created. All they did was give a physical location to something that used to be off-screen. That's a plus, not a negative.

    The only plum thing they did was to never make proper community lots out of some career rabbit holes: The grocery store, Spa, the book store, and the bistro. They were career lots, serving double duty as service lots, but simmers expect those to be community lots. That was an unfortunate decision for TS3. I don't mind rabbit holes as career lots, but they should not muddy things with making career/community hybrids.

    For some of us, it was a negative. When a Sim goes out of sight completely, it's a bit of "out of sight, out of mind" - they're just gone for a while now, while I focus on something else (another Sim or, if I'm playing a one-Sim household, trying to see if there's actually enough time to check my email before the workday is suddenly over). When a Sim goes into a Sims 3 rabbithole, it's more "Why are you not letting me in that building with them! You're telling me they're doing this thing, but I can't watch! I can only stare at the outside!" I hated that.

    How is the sims 4 any different with its non-active careers? The sims just disappear into thin air. The same when a sim decides to leave a lot. They don't get in a car and drive off, they disappear. At least with The Sims 3 you could see the sims travel to places in the town and see the actual building they work in.

    In The Sims 4 why is there no hospital, science lab or police station in game? These are active careers yet the building our sim is supposed to be working in is in non of the towns. Just where is my sim going to when they go to work? Surely you are objective enough to see that none of these limitations in 4 are progress or conducive to immersion?
  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    Apartments are one of those big features of The Sims, plus we are getting this immersive looking city, very different from the current worlds.
    Compared to the first EPs, this one should be a big seller.

    TS4 is hanging by a fingernail for me. And that fingernail is its sims. I really like them and I want to play them, and with the pace of EPs, I am pretty much desperate for new things to do. I really should be waiting for the next 50% off sale to pick up the next EP and what ever SPs and GPs are available at the time, but I am going ahead for Apartments and I would like to reboot my sims and start all over again.

    "I hear we are getting apartments in a city."
    10-18-16_8-33-43nbspPM.png

    "I would like to try city living in a nice upscale apartment"
    10-18-16_8-34-04nbspPM.png
    Okay, you're getting your apartment. :p
    I swear it would be easier to pass this game over if I did not like its sims. :D

    Creative freedom seems to have been tossed under the bus for this round of the sims. If we are giving up creative freedom and choice, the game play had better be worth it. I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments. This game seems to be still trying to right itself from whatever happened in early development. I don't know whether I should be condemning them or applauding them. Well applauding would be the best positive route, but It would be nice to know exactly what I am applauding them for. We probably will never get the official truth about what happened with this game.

    It will probably be moot by the 4th EP.
    That's my cutoff point for going without toddlers and pre-teens, or reworked teens.
    The%20Goths.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
  • luthienrisingluthienrising Posts: 37,617 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    But that's an opinion that can be explained. A major trade that Sims 2 and Sims 3 did is that Sims 2 provided superior customization of your town, whereas Sims 3 traded that away for rabbit holes, but in exchange it got story progression and one giant interconnected town instead of lots and loading screens. It's understandable some would like Sims 2 better because if you enjoy customizing your town without having to access a create-a-world tool or the like, Sims 2 is superior.

    What? :D

    TS2 didn't even have a true town.
    It had a map. A 3D map. And yes, you could customize that map.
    It's only purpose was to serve a 3D file cabinet to choose the lot you want to play and give you a mental image of what your complete town should look like if it was an actual world you could travel through.

    Yeah, it's easier to create a representational map of a world that your sims will never travel through than it is to create an actual living world.
    I wouldn't even compare a 3D map maker with a world building tool.

    And what do rabbit holes have to do with trading away customization?
    Rabbit holes came about because creating an open world created a new problem with traditional careers. TS2 sims teleport to hidden rabbitholes when they go off to work. Why on earth would you have your sims teleport to an offscreen location or drive out of town in a world that is supposed to be open? They needed a physical location, but they weren't about to create Ambitions styled careers for all the base game careers, so the rabbit hole was created. All they did was give a physical location to something that used to be off-screen. That's a plus, not a negative.

    The only plum thing they did was to never make proper community lots out of some career rabbit holes: The grocery store, Spa, the book store, and the bistro. They were career lots, serving double duty as service lots, but simmers expect those to be community lots. That was an unfortunate decision for TS3. I don't mind rabbit holes as career lots, but they should not muddy things with making career/community hybrids.

    For some of us, it was a negative. When a Sim goes out of sight completely, it's a bit of "out of sight, out of mind" - they're just gone for a while now, while I focus on something else (another Sim or, if I'm playing a one-Sim household, trying to see if there's actually enough time to check my email before the workday is suddenly over). When a Sim goes into a Sims 3 rabbithole, it's more "Why are you not letting me in that building with them! You're telling me they're doing this thing, but I can't watch! I can only stare at the outside!" I hated that.

    How is the sims 4 any different with its non-active careers? The sims just disappear into thin air. The same when a sim decides to leave a lot. They don't get in a car and drive off, they disappear. At least with The Sims 3 you could see the sims travel to places in the town and see the actual building they work in.

    In The Sims 4 why is there no hospital, science lab or police station in game? These are active careers yet the building our sim is supposed to be working in is in non of the towns. Just where is my sim going to when they go to work? Surely you are objective enough to see that none of these limitations in 4 are progress or conducive to immersion?

    The difference with the non-active is that it's out-of-sight, out-of-mind. To me, personally, that is better than being in a rabbithole. I totally understand that my experience is not universal. That's part of my point, here. We don't all experience something like a rabbithole the same way. I preferred not seeing the building to seeing the building but not being able to accompany my Sim in it. For me, personally, immersion was broken more by rabbitholes than by disappearing off the screen.

    One of my beefs with GTW is precisely what you state about those venues. And this is one of the reasons I'd have liked Retail separated out from the EP - maybe that would have enabled development that would have let them add the venues to the world, even if those had been in a separate place like Magnolia Promenade. But that remains opinion.

    The thing about immersion is that we do not all get there in the same way. Different things break different people's immersion. An objective reading of how people describe their gaming experience will show that.
    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.
  • CinderellimouseCinderellimouse Posts: 19,380 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?
  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    But that's an opinion that can be explained. A major trade that Sims 2 and Sims 3 did is that Sims 2 provided superior customization of your town, whereas Sims 3 traded that away for rabbit holes, but in exchange it got story progression and one giant interconnected town instead of lots and loading screens. It's understandable some would like Sims 2 better because if you enjoy customizing your town without having to access a create-a-world tool or the like, Sims 2 is superior.

    What? :D

    TS2 didn't even have a true town.
    It had a map. A 3D map. And yes, you could customize that map.
    It's only purpose was to serve a 3D file cabinet to choose the lot you want to play and give you a mental image of what your complete town should look like if it was an actual world you could travel through.

    Yeah, it's easier to create a representational map of a world that your sims will never travel through than it is to create an actual living world.
    I wouldn't even compare a 3D map maker with a world building tool.

    And what do rabbit holes have to do with trading away customization?
    Rabbit holes came about because creating an open world created a new problem with traditional careers. TS2 sims teleport to hidden rabbitholes when they go off to work. Why on earth would you have your sims teleport to an offscreen location or drive out of town in a world that is supposed to be open? They needed a physical location, but they weren't about to create Ambitions styled careers for all the base game careers, so the rabbit hole was created. All they did was give a physical location to something that used to be off-screen. That's a plus, not a negative.

    The only plum thing they did was to never make proper community lots out of some career rabbit holes: The grocery store, Spa, the book store, and the bistro. They were career lots, serving double duty as service lots, but simmers expect those to be community lots. That was an unfortunate decision for TS3. I don't mind rabbit holes as career lots, but they should not muddy things with making career/community hybrids.

    For some of us, it was a negative. When a Sim goes out of sight completely, it's a bit of "out of sight, out of mind" - they're just gone for a while now, while I focus on something else (another Sim or, if I'm playing a one-Sim household, trying to see if there's actually enough time to check my email before the workday is suddenly over). When a Sim goes into a Sims 3 rabbithole, it's more "Why are you not letting me in that building with them! You're telling me they're doing this thing, but I can't watch! I can only stare at the outside!" I hated that.

    I don't understand that.
    I see two different lot types. Career lots and community lots. Career lots you can't visit and community lots you can.
    Disappearing into thin air bothers me more than going off to a location. It would bother me more in an open world than it does in TS4 since continuity is broken anyway with loading screens.

    The%20Goths.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
  • BlkBarbiegalBlkBarbiegal Posts: 7,924 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    For me TS2 was a better game.

    But that's an opinion that can be explained. A major trade that Sims 2 and Sims 3 did is that Sims 2 provided superior customization of your town, whereas Sims 3 traded that away for rabbit holes, but in exchange it got story progression and one giant interconnected town instead of lots and loading screens. It's understandable some would like Sims 2 better because if you enjoy customizing your town without having to access a create-a-world tool or the like, Sims 2 is superior.

    What? :D

    TS2 didn't even have a true town.
    It had a map. A 3D map. And yes, you could customize that map.
    It's only purpose was to serve a 3D file cabinet to choose the lot you want to play and give you a mental image of what your complete town should look like if it was an actual world you could travel through.

    Yeah, it's easier to create a representational map of a world that your sims will never travel through than it is to create an actual living world.
    I wouldn't even compare a 3D map maker with a world building tool.

    And what do rabbit holes have to do with trading away customization?
    Rabbit holes came about because creating an open world created a new problem with traditional careers. TS2 sims teleport to hidden rabbitholes when they go off to work. Why on earth would you have your sims teleport to an offscreen location or drive out of town in a world that is supposed to be open? They needed a physical location, but they weren't about to create Ambitions styled careers for all the base game careers, so the rabbit hole was created. All they did was give a physical location to something that used to be off-screen. That's a plus, not a negative.

    The only plum thing they did was to never make proper community lots out of some career rabbit holes: The grocery store, Spa, the book store, and the bistro. They were career lots, serving double duty as service lots, but simmers expect those to be community lots. That was an unfortunate decision for TS3. I don't mind rabbit holes as career lots, but they should not muddy things with making career/community hybrids.

    For some of us, it was a negative. When a Sim goes out of sight completely, it's a bit of "out of sight, out of mind" - they're just gone for a while now, while I focus on something else (another Sim or, if I'm playing a one-Sim household, trying to see if there's actually enough time to check my email before the workday is suddenly over). When a Sim goes into a Sims 3 rabbithole, it's more "Why are you not letting me in that building with them! You're telling me they're doing this thing, but I can't watch! I can only stare at the outside!" I hated that.
    I felt the same exact way! lol
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  • CK213CK213 Posts: 20,525 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?

    Don't have a clue.
    But at least they might not have the same constraints as they did with City Living. I can't see them putting so much detail into dorm life that it limits what they can do with the dorm. And with University, you aren't switching households. You are with the same sims for the duration.
    The%20Goths.png?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    After two years, I'm really bored of being told what my opinion about certain features not being in the game ought to be, and that I should be scared for the future. You know what? You don't get to dictate other people's preferences or opinions. And not everyone wants to buy the same game as we had before, with the same features, for another 5 years after doing it for 15 years before that. Because you know what? If everything returns that we had before? That's what you get. If they want to do that with Sims 5 so you can have your updated Sims 3 (or whatever version you prefer), you're welcome to it. I'm going to buy and enjoy a fresh game. And I'm so sick of being told I shouldn't want that.

    Then defend it. I just got done linking this and you apparently did not read it and did exactly what it says. Acknowledging that you're entitled to an opinion does nothing to address the criticisms raised or to defend aspects you like. Sure enough, your post is devoid of any concrete arguments or statements, failing to both counter any criticisms said and to actually defend your own stance.

    If you cannot defend your own stance, it's probably a bad stance. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but some opinions are just bad opinions. If you cannot even explain why you like something or why a critic is wrong in a logical, coherent way...? You should probably reflect on why that is. I can already pick apart the post above:
    I'm going to buy and enjoy a fresh game.

    What is fresh about Sims 4?!? The only feature in Sims 4 that is entirely new to the Sims franchise is the clubs system of Get Together, but sadly that one relies on basegame features to support it; stick that feature in Sims 3 and I promise you it'd perform better since you can make clubs of Genies that banish sims from lots or clubs of Aliens that summon meteors. Sims 4 lacks actually gameplay content, so clubs remain the only new feature. That's it. Even the "revolutionary" moods system is more or less Sims 3 moodlets expanded to have a couple more dimensions to it, but even so Sims 3 had moodlets that were often more powerful or meaningful. (Death of a loved one activated new interactions, being cheated on meant automatic refusal of all romantic interactions and many negative interactions for friendy ones for it's duration, creeped out did the same, etc etc) It's already copying past iterations, it's just doing a terrible, half-complete job of it.

    Wanna do a comparison...? Within the first three expansions for Sims 2, the revolutionary features we got were university studies, commercial lots in their entirety (and cars), and owning and running a business. In the first three expansions for Sims 3, we got adventure quests, we got active careers for the first time, and then Late Night was actually sparse on content but Bridgeport did deliver the first "city" experience of it's kind, thus people overlooked the lack of features themselves. Sims 4...? We're coming in on expansion pack #3 and only one of those three has done something new.

    This is exactly why I'm gonna start putting that link everywhere: Empty "I'm entitled to my opinion" statements do nothing to actually justify said opinion. You just said Sims 4 is a "fresh game," but name no examples of how it's fresh at all. It's an empty, hollow compliment that isn't even deserved.

    And to be a broken record once more...? Consumer bias is a thing. There was an actual accredited study that showed consumers are often reluctant to admit the failures of a product they love or that they vouched for because it's subconciously registered as a personal failure and as evidence for one's own faults. Yes, I would propose that if someone cannot even justify their love of Sims 4 or their positive opinions of it and simply delivers "I'm entitled to my opinion" or "I just like it ok," then why on earth am I to believe you're not just being defensive because you like the Sims franchise? Being defensive and sweeping the problems under the rug solves nothing. Heck, it encourages EA to keep doing what they're doing because they see they can get away with it. Let's not kid ourselves: it's a faceless corporation. The exact same faceless corporation that withheld press copies on release when they realized they had a dud product on their hands, so as to ensure press reviews didn't lead to a loss in profit or people retracting their pre-orders. You give a faceless corporation room to get more money from you for less work? Yes, it will totally do it. That's not a critique of EA in particular, that's not a critique that extends to the personalities of it's individual workers, but it's absolutely the way the world works.
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • NellythekiddNellythekidd Posts: 251 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?

    Don't have a clue.
    But at least they might not have the same constraints as they did with City Living. I can't see them putting so much detail into dorm life that it limits what they can do with the dorm. And with University, you aren't switching households. You are with the same sims for the duration.

    This is a good idea! I had in mind a Generations type of pack with suburban areas and smaller-scale apartment building included in that, but University EP also sounds like a good place to provide the tools for builders. In TS2 we had owned doors for University, but all the played roommates in the dorm shared the same funds. I would like to play all the played sims in a dormitory lot at the same time but I would like them to have separate funds if possible.

    The Owned door could also provide extensive door locking system. A door (and the apartment in it) could be marked to be owned by several different sims, for example a couple and their children. With that the people in different apartments would be part of the same household, but with the door locking they would "recognize" which part of the lot is theirs - they wouldn't start cooking in their neighbor's kitchen! I have built and downloaded apartments like that and I would love to have at least that.
    Origin ID / Gallery: nellythekidd
  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?

    Don't have a clue.
    But at least they might not have the same constraints as they did with City Living. I can't see them putting so much detail into dorm life that it limits what they can do with the dorm. And with University, you aren't switching households. You are with the same sims for the duration.

    Realistically, I am not excited for a Univeristy EP. Just like in Sims 2 or 3 the world will absolutely be a 'destination' with limited functionality, but we've seen how that works in Sims 4 already. I wouldn't be surprised to see 'dorms' created in a way that has zero benefit to the player, similarly to apartments. I mean as essential as 'dorms' are to some college students lives, they certainly aren't the main aspect of university. I thoroughly expect them to be another 'this isn't dorm living' type of feature that places restrictions on the player.
  • ArlettaArletta Posts: 8,444 Member
    edited October 2016
    CK213 wrote: »
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?

    Don't have a clue.
    But at least they might not have the same constraints as they did with City Living. I can't see them putting so much detail into dorm life that it limits what they can do with the dorm. And with University, you aren't switching households. You are with the same sims for the duration.

    Like the hospital, police station and lab in GTW. There when you need it, not when you don't (so subhood?). Not buildable as such, but editable. I am remembering right that there was some kind of workaround, right, so you could edit them?


  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    Arletta wrote: »
    CK213 wrote: »
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?

    Don't have a clue.
    But at least they might not have the same constraints as they did with City Living. I can't see them putting so much detail into dorm life that it limits what they can do with the dorm. And with University, you aren't switching households. You are with the same sims for the duration.

    Like the hospital, police station and lab in GTW. There when you need it, not when you don't (so subhood?). Not buildable as such, but editable. I am remembering right that there was some kind of workaround, right, so you could edit them?


    You can only edit them when you are on the lot. Meaning you will need to be at an active work day (or giving birth I guess) to access those buildings.
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    Arletta wrote: »
    After two years, I'm really bored of being told what my opinion about certain features not being in the game ought to be, and that I should be scared for the future. You know what? You don't get to dictate other people's preferences or opinions. And not everyone wants to buy the same game as we had before, with the same features, for another 5 years after doing it for 15 years before that. Because you know what? If everything returns that we had before? That's what you get. If they want to do that with Sims 5 so you can have your updated Sims 3 (or whatever version you prefer), you're welcome to it. I'm going to buy and enjoy a fresh game. And I'm so sick of being told I shouldn't want that.

    Then defend it. I just got done linking this and you apparently did not read it and did exactly what it says. Acknowledging that you're entitled to an opinion does nothing to address the criticisms raised or to defend aspects you like. Sure enough, your post is devoid of any concrete arguments or statements, failing to both counter any criticisms said and to actually defend your own stance.

    If you cannot defend your own stance, it's probably a bad stance. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but some opinions are just bad opinions. If you cannot even explain why you like something or why a critic is wrong in a logical, coherent way...? You should probably reflect on why that is. I can already pick apart the post above:
    I'm going to buy and enjoy a fresh game.

    What is fresh about Sims 4?!? The only feature in Sims 4 that is entirely new to the Sims franchise is the clubs system of Get Together, but sadly that one relies on basegame features to support it; stick that feature in Sims 3 and I promise you it'd perform better since you can make clubs of Genies that banish sims from lots or clubs of Aliens that summon meteors. Sims 4 lacks actually gameplay content, so clubs remain the only new feature. That's it. Even the "revolutionary" moods system is more or less Sims 3 moodlets expanded to have a couple more dimensions to it, but even so Sims 3 had moodlets that were often more powerful or meaningful. (Death of a loved one activated new interactions, being cheated on meant automatic refusal of all romantic interactions and many negative interactions for friendy ones for it's duration, creeped out did the same, etc etc) It's already copying past iterations, it's just doing a terrible, half-complete job of it.

    Wanna do a comparison...? Within the first three expansions for Sims 2, the revolutionary features we got were university studies, commercial lots in their entirety (and cars), and owning and running a business. In the first three expansions for Sims 3, we got adventure quests, we got active careers for the first time, and then Late Night was actually sparse on content but Bridgeport did deliver the first "city" experience of it's kind, thus people overlooked the lack of features themselves. Sims 4...? We're coming in on expansion pack #3 and only one of those three has done something new.

    This is exactly why I'm gonna start putting that link everywhere: Empty "I'm entitled to my opinion" statements do nothing to actually justify said opinion. You just said Sims 4 is a "fresh game," but name no examples of how it's fresh at all. It's an empty, hollow compliment that isn't even deserved.

    And to be a broken record once more...? Consumer bias is a thing. There was an actual accredited study that showed consumers are often reluctant to admit the failures of a product they love or that they vouched for because it's subconciously registered as a personal failure and as evidence for one's own faults. Yes, I would propose that if someone cannot even justify their love of Sims 4 or their positive opinions of it and simply delivers "I'm entitled to my opinion" or "I just like it ok," then why on earth am I to believe you're not just being defensive because you like the Sims franchise? Being defensive and sweeping the problems under the rug solves nothing. Heck, it encourages EA to keep doing what they're doing because they see they can get away with it. Let's not kid ourselves: it's a faceless corporation. The exact same faceless corporation that withheld press copies on release when they realized they had a dud product on their hands, so as to ensure press reviews didn't lead to a loss in profit or people retracting their pre-orders. You give a faceless corporation room to get more money from you for less work? Yes, it will totally do it. That's not a critique of EA in particular, that's not a critique that extends to the personalities of it's individual workers, but it's absolutely the way the world works.

    You don't think we have, those of us who like the game? Defended it that is? Don't you think we've sat and we've said we like the liveliness of the sims, the way they interact with each other, the quests, especially in jobs (and I tend to get the LTW ones by accident rather than design) as it gives us a little bit of control over whether they reach the top of their career or not.

    We've been sat defending our opinion for two years. We've said all we can say and more besides. We've been told we're wrong for liking the game more times than I'd care to count. It got boring during the first year. It petered out. There's no point defending it, when all you're going to get told is you're wrong. It's been done. Now it's easier to say 'I like it, deal with it'.

    How strange that despite both existing since release day, somehow the critics aren't tired, but even when prompted and challenged, the fans still can't be bothered to defend it. It's as if that's a convenient excuse or something!!!
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • CinderellimouseCinderellimouse Posts: 19,380 Member
    CK213 wrote: »
    CK213 wrote: »
    I suspect we won't be able to create our own dorms either if we get University. I hope they do the opposite and use University dorms as a way to allow us to build simple apartments.

    @CK213 This is what I'm hoping too. How do you see that working?

    Don't have a clue.
    But at least they might not have the same constraints as they did with City Living. I can't see them putting so much detail into dorm life that it limits what they can do with the dorm. And with University, you aren't switching households. You are with the same sims for the duration.

    This is a good idea! I had in mind a Generations type of pack with suburban areas and smaller-scale apartment building included in that, but University EP also sounds like a good place to provide the tools for builders. In TS2 we had owned doors for University, but all the played roommates in the dorm shared the same funds. I would like to play all the played sims in a dormitory lot at the same time but I would like them to have separate funds if possible.

    The Owned door could also provide extensive door locking system. A door (and the apartment in it) could be marked to be owned by several different sims, for example a couple and their children. With that the people in different apartments would be part of the same household, but with the door locking they would "recognize" which part of the lot is theirs - they wouldn't start cooking in their neighbor's kitchen! I have built and downloaded apartments like that and I would love to have at least that.

    Thanks to you both for replying. :)

    I'm trying to figure out how I'd want them to work: I know I'd like more tools to make my own apartment builds more functional, I'm just not sure how I'd want that to happen. A uni ep with dorms does seem like the perfect place to add more features, and I suppose a hotel/vacation type pack could also add more tools. I mostly want to be able to make my terraced houses and apartments function better. I can build a row of houses, and move a household in, and lock doors and assign beds... but I'd like to be able to focus on each household in turn. Ani had a mod for TS3 where it seemed to block certain Sims out of the UI, so I think they were still part of the household but this effectively made them uncontrollable, more like the TS3 apartment neighbours. But you could switch between them and control the other sims. Then there was the hidden room markers in TS3, so maybe something like that (that we could place ourselves) would be useful to block out the sections that aren't currently active? Especially if we could switch between them.

    And I think having a way to separate household funds, as you suggest, would be really helpful too. One of my main issues with having multiple sims on one lot is that they share the funds: so when the neighbour comes home from work, they make money, or a neighbour makes food and it costs my 'active' household money. So I'd love accounts for individual Sims as well as a household account. When a Sim gets paid it would go to their personal account, but you could transfer money to the main account for bills, for example.

    I also find shared inventories a problem. Shared fridges and bookcases and things like that.

    I do like the advanced owned door and locking suggestion. I think a combination of that, and the hidden room markers to say 'this room belongs to this family' would work well. There could maybe a UI that allows us to transfer sims to different units within one household too.

    I think these things would be suitable for dorms as well. So we could say, 'this apartment belongs to these two roommates' and 'this apartment belongs to these'. We could assign sims to each apartment door, which would work as their front door. There could be a Late Night style post box. The room makers would specify which areas belong to which sims, and also which areas are communal (laundry and kitchen for example). Individual funds would be perfect for when those student loans come in, but the students would have to pay in to the household funds to pay the rent.

    Sorry for thinking out loud. XD It's just something I keep puzzling over and I'm glad to hear what others are thinking. I'll clarify my thinking and I think I'll start an ideas thread so we can all talk about what we want without derailing this one. Ooops.
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