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Thoughts on open world?

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  • HappySimmer3HappySimmer3 Posts: 6,699 Member
    Also for #4 - long commuting times. OP I don't get why this is even an issue for people, I really don't. I don't think driving around the world is that big a deal. And I often change the camera view so I can see the road my sim is traveling on, sort of more like first person driving, and the time goes by in a flash. But I don't think it takes all that long anyway.

    Of course you obviously think so, so one solution would be teleporting as mentioned or another solution is to cheat up more money and get your sims one of the expensive cars; they go 10 times faster than the cheap cars - because the point was to gain money and improve your sims' lives with better objects. Just like how the cheap beds are plum to sleep in, and the more expensive beds gave more energy, etc.

    Well, in Island Paradiso, I have to micromanage my mermaids and other sims around the island, or they would end up taking the long way around and take forever (a whole day to get groceries, for example!) to get to their destination.

    Traveling (and micromanaging the sims while doing so) is just tedious for me, so I usually end up using the teleportation cheat.

    Ugh, such bad memories for me. I would probably use a teleportation cheat again if Sims 5 has open world again. (Well, if Sims 5 is any good and better at optimizing performance and had busy/lively worlds, open working restaurants, grocery stores, home buseinesses, bakeries, etc, and toddlers and all of the toddler/baby stuff from Sims 2, then I would play it.)

    I rarely play any of the supernaturals, but when I first got IP I did try out the mermaids and UGH! I know exactly what you mean. What a routing nightmare when your mermaid wants to swim across the ocean to get to the side of the world you wanted to send them. Takes forever! As I recall I used the teleportation cheat a lot then too.

    But this obviously wasn't the scenario I had in mind when I responded to the OP. :)
    The Sims 30695923002_cffaca4078_t.jpg

    Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
  • 1need4kaffee1need4kaffee Posts: 486 Member
    I would be happy with open neighborhoods, but they have to be slightly larger than the existing neighborhoods. There should be a corner store or barber shop along with the 5 houses and two empty lots. The neighborhood park should have a swing set or hop scotch area along with the picnic tables and grill. The school bus has to pick up the kids, and the commuter van takes you to work. It actually has to go to the end of the neighborhood before disappearing into the ether.

    <<soapbox speech>> In the perfect Sims you will be able to talk and fish at the same time!!! You will no longer have an idiotic smile on your face for no reason. People won't think you talk to the walls and sniff the paint. You will once again be afraid of fire and the Watcher can once again kill you without supreme effort. You will have an ice box for fishing so the fish don't rot before you get home. AND YOUR MICROSCOPE WILL FIT ON A TABLE!! Free hospital coverage for all - not just the preggers - and if you die, there WILL be a graveyard.... The potty will not talk back and there will be a point to an Angry Poo. If you Pee like a Champion, it will be in a tournament cup.

    thank you, thank you...I'll be preaching here all year. :D;)
  • HappySimmer3HappySimmer3 Posts: 6,699 Member
    edited January 2017
    Considering that TS3 worlds had 80-100 lots, I think open districts of at least 10-15 lots is reasonable. Providing they optimize the simulation like they should have done in the first place, anyway.

    I also agree that it should be up to players to decide the mix of lots that they want in each district. And I agree with your speech! lol
    The Sims 30695923002_cffaca4078_t.jpg

    Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
  • LatinaBunnyLatinaBunny Posts: 4,666 Member
    Also for #4 - long commuting times. OP I don't get why this is even an issue for people, I really don't. I don't think driving around the world is that big a deal. And I often change the camera view so I can see the road my sim is traveling on, sort of more like first person driving, and the time goes by in a flash. But I don't think it takes all that long anyway.

    Of course you obviously think so, so one solution would be teleporting as mentioned or another solution is to cheat up more money and get your sims one of the expensive cars; they go 10 times faster than the cheap cars - because the point was to gain money and improve your sims' lives with better objects. Just like how the cheap beds are plum to sleep in, and the more expensive beds gave more energy, etc.

    Well, in Island Paradiso, I have to micromanage my mermaids and other sims around the island, or they would end up taking the long way around and take forever (a whole day to get groceries, for example!) to get to their destination.

    Traveling (and micromanaging the sims while doing so) is just tedious for me, so I usually end up using the teleportation cheat.

    Ugh, such bad memories for me. I would probably use a teleportation cheat again if Sims 5 has open world again. (Well, if Sims 5 is any good and better at optimizing performance and had busy/lively worlds, open working restaurants, grocery stores, home buseinesses, bakeries, etc, and toddlers and all of the toddler/baby stuff from Sims 2, then I would play it.)

    I rarely play any of the supernaturals, but when I first got IP I did try out the mermaids and UGH! I know exactly what you mean. What a routing nightmare when your mermaid wants to swim across the ocean to get to the side of the world you wanted to send them. Takes forever! As I recall I used the teleportation cheat a lot then too.

    But this obviously wasn't the scenario I had in mind when I responded to the OP. :)

    Yeah, Island Paradise was THE EP that got me into trying out Sims 3 again. (Yup, I only had base game of Sims 3 all of those years; I couldn't get into Sims 3 even at base game level). I had tons of mermaids made, so that was how I found out how much of a pain it was to navigate with a big family of mermaids in a household, especially in a (beautiful) mess of a world like Island Paradiso, lol. :lol:

    Lol, but yes, I think I understand what you are trying to say to the OP. :smile: Just wanted to state my experience about why i dislike traveling (in the bonked up world of IP, anyway).

    I love the look of Sims 3 worlds, but I can never get much into the gameplay aspects of actuallly playing those beautiful, gorgeous worlds (without tedious process of modding, editing, and fixing, etc). Didn't help that I loved doing home businesses back in Sims 2 (usually home retail or selling homemade crafts or foods, etc), and Sims 3 didn't have that working for me until much, much, much later with mods...
    Considering that TS3 worlds had 80-100 lots, I think open districts of at least 10-15 lots is reasonable. Providing they optimize the simulation like they should have done in the first place, anyway.

    I also agree that it should be up to players to decide the mix of lots that they want in each district. And I agree with your speech! lol

    Oh, yeah! I could totally get behind open district areas (with mentioned optimization, of course). :smiley:
    ~*~Occult Family Player player~*~
    (She/her)
  • blunderwoman727blunderwoman727 Posts: 102 Member
    The lack of an open world in S4 is one of the top reasons I won't play it. And quite frankly most of the complaints about the open world have more to do with bad coding than the actual concept of open world itself. On top of that this is hardly a revolutionary concept these days. Plenty of games have open or semi-open worlds. So as far as I'm concerned the endless loading screens on S4 are archaic.

    Open world makes the game FUN. There's no down time just smooth and continuous play time. If I sim A is reading a book for work, I can toggle to sim b who might be dancing at a nightclub or maybe to sim C whose flirting it up outside of the theater. Whereas with S4 it's load screen after load screen after load screen after load screen. As a result you just end up keeping all your sims at home just so you can manage all of them. It's like a prison.

    Anytime any sort of loading pops up on my screen...it's either ALT + TAB or I pick up my phone and check social media. There's just too much to do on the internet or phone to watch loading screens. In a game like the sims where you're supposed to be immersed it's incredibly easy to lose that immersion when you're constantly dealing with loading screens.
  • SimTrippySimTrippy Posts: 7,651 Member
    edited January 2017
    SimTrippy wrote: »
    Personally I hope in TS5 they make semi-open worlds. I think neighborhoods should be open, with your neighbors doing stuff (having parties, BBQs, kids, etc), each neighborhood having its own school (some good, some bad, depending on the neighborhood itself) and mayor + city hall and all that stuff. It'd be nice if neighborhoods were sometimes upscale, sometimes a bit more grungy, which would give the rags to riches stuff more power lol. But I wouldn't mind if there was a loading screen to go to other neighborhoods further away, especially if the loading screen features you driving along a street in your car or something of the sort. Idk for me that would be open-worldly enough but without having the issue of having to load massive worlds all at once and keep them running for hours without severe routing issues and all else that made TS3 the poorly optimized gem that it was. I think that would give both sides what they want and allow for a better implementation of story progression ... :)

    If you take a 'world' and divide it into subdivisions each of which is open (which is my idea of a semi-open world), then personally I think it would be rather redundant to have a school and a court house in each subdivision. You could have different sections of a city like several residential areas, a 'dowtown' shopping and business district, etc. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to put commercial properties in any subdivision you wanted, of course. It would be neat to have a few small shops or hangouts for your sims to visit without a loading screen.

    And yes I darn well do want customization back. In fact, TS4 is not a Sims game to me because they took that away. Dumbing down build mode and making CAS easy do not count as complete customization in my book. I want to have control of everything.

    Yes it's a world divided into subdivision, but in my mind, those are large subdivisions (15 lots is fine I guess). Not as large as a TS3 world in and of themselves though, but large enough. And maybe not all of them need separate school, but a lot of them (so I don't have to see too many loading screens if I don't want to visit someone far away ;)). That also includes shops and other things in each, but maybe not the same one in all of them so you'd have a reason to go somewhere else, too, if you so desire. I think a CAW tool would be great for that matter, so I can make my own subdivisions and worlds lol. I too want as much customization as possible.
  • LatinaBunnyLatinaBunny Posts: 4,666 Member
    edited January 2017
    I would only accept open world if it was coded well, and if the worlds are better made (looking at you, Isla Paradiso, lol).

    However, unfortunately, I don't have much confidence in EA's programming/coding skills to do open world justice (with proper optimization!).

    I also highly doubt a competitor could do an open world with all of the deep customization options with all of the content and all of the many options alongside good optimization as well, because if it was so possible, there would have been a competitor by now. I am guessing making a sims-like game must a be very complicated and resource-consuming process because I don't see any competitors doing any similar games.

    (I guess the closest are those farm simulation games like Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley, and Rune Factory. However, these games have premade NPCs and preset worlds that you can't customize too much and some linear storylines/quests, etc. Assassin's Creed and some RPGs may have open world or semi open world, but they don't have as much customization or as much of an indepth deep life simulation to the extent that Sims 2/3 had...)

    So, I am not excited by open world being programmed by the same company because I don't see evidence that they have learned their past lessons. For me, personally, I would just rather not have it if the concept is going to be badly mangled again. Semi-open looks like something that can be worked on for a future sims game, since Sims 4 has a somewhat semi-open world.

    Listen, even in many of the Elder Scrolls games, including Skyrim, which have open world, there are still loading screens to enter and exit buildings, and I haven't seen a lot of games that don't have some kind of loading screen to enter/exit some areas that aren't linear action or action/adventure games.

    Sims 3 may not have loading screens, but it wasn't well-coded, either, so it's not a win-win there.

    (I think with such a diverse community, it would probably be hard for a company to satisfy every simmer/player, anyway, because sims games have so many things going on, and each Sims iteration focuses on different things, etc, etc.)

    I would rather have better AI and more substantial content over a fully open world again. I have loved Sims 1 and Sims 2 despite the loading screens, and I have other games that still have some quick loading screens, and I still love them.

    I just haven't seen a game that has open world with no loading screens that has lots of customization options and complexity that Sims games have, so I am guessing it must be harder than it seems even with the "advanced tech". If it was so easy with the tech, we would have seen other competitors by now.

    But I haven't seen it yet, so I am guessing that the tech may not be there yet (and many simmers' computers may not be there yet, either, and that is supposed to looked, which is what a company is supposed to do: look at its target audience), so I am fine with semi-open worlds and some loading screens or some rendering times.

    So, for me, I am not interested in another fully 100% open world if I am going to keep having ghost towns, rabbit hole venues like restaurants/shops/etc, lack of home businesses, losing details, and having rhe routing issues, etc.

    That's my personal opinion, of course. I have other bigger priorities for future sims games like proper AI, more customization options, more open venues, toddlers, lively community lots/worlds, home businesses, more indepth content, etc.

    This is just my personal opinion, again. I have different likes/wants and priorities than other simmers, and that's fine.
    ~*~Occult Family Player player~*~
    (She/her)
  • LiELFLiELF Posts: 6,439 Member
    The open world feature impressed me for about 10 minutes before the extensive time wasted walking my sim back home killed it. So I don't personally feel like it works in the sims for me. Then again, I have the attention span of a ferret so I just don't have the patience to sit and watch my sims spend half the day walking down the street. I actually love open world in MMOs and the initial concept sounded awesome at first, but I think that the compromise between sims 3 and 4 that was suggested by some other people here, for there to be open neighborhoods instead, is a better solution. But some people have said that open world makes it harder to play rotationally, so if I have to sacrifice that, then it's a big, fat no way. (I apologize if this is an incorrect assumption, I really didn't play Sims 3 that much so I have to put my information together by what others have said.)

    I also really like the way the worlds are fully connected in Sims 4 and I wouldn't want to sacrifice that if it became an issue, which it very well could. I make tons of sims and switch around what households I play when I get bored, so I love having a bunch of maps to move people around and still have them all be able to interact. That feature, to me, is a keeper. Plus, I don't really mind loading screens in Sims 4. I played mostly Sims 2 in the past, and that was quite a wait for loading times, especially when having many gigs of custom content, lol.
    #Team Occult
  • CandydCandyd Posts: 1,261 Member
    LiELF wrote: »
    The open world feature impressed me for about 10 minutes before the extensive time wasted walking my sim back home killed it. So I don't personally feel like it works in the sims for me.
    If you're referring to sims without cars or to Bridgeport's subway, I know what you mean. I always give them fast cars, especially in Bridgeport. And teleportation, and UFOs as they're cars that teleport to their destination. There are also jetpacks that teleport sims to their destination, but they aren't totally safe even when sims are supposed to pilot them perfectly, my favorite sim just experienced it lately :s
    LiELF wrote: »
    I also really like the way the worlds are fully connected in Sims 4 and I wouldn't want to sacrifice that if it became an issue, which it very well could. I make tons of sims and switch around what households I play when I get bored, so I love having a bunch of maps to move people around and still have them all be able to interact. That feature, to me, is a keeper.
    I agree. But the problem is partly solved with mods in the Sims 3. It's possible to connect as many worlds as you want and to make your households travel between them and lose no data, not even wishes. I hope developers find inspiration in something like this for the Sims 5.

  • NuJeruCitizenNuJeruCitizen Posts: 13 New Member
    I really like the open world game play, I don't like the the game loading to travel or go next door. I like the Sims to be able to walk down the street and ride a bicycle, drive a car. I don't like that the Sims in Sims4 can't drive cars or own cars, that's just not cool.
  • Odonata68Odonata68 Posts: 1,076 Member
    Open world is the main reason I chose Sims 3 over Sims 4. I've only had 3 for about a year and a half, and after playing in an open world, I don't think I could play without it. :)
  • ApparentlyAwesomeApparentlyAwesome Posts: 1,523 Member
    I'm team open world. I never did like a bunch of loading screens. I just want the one and done, unless I'm traveling to a new world like France or Egypt. I've often thought about more I guess you could say active or interactive loading screens? Like your sim or sims traits would determine what kind of stuff you see them doing or can make them do on the plane ride to China or the road trip to Riverview while the game loads. The heavy sleeper sim in the passenger seat out cold while the virtuoso sim is head banging to the song on the radio but is also clumsy and nearly swerves into the opposing traffic lane. Just a thought but back on topic, The Sims 3 spoiled me, lol. I can keep track of all my sims, I don't care too much about rabbitholes (though occasionally I have thoughts about the possibility of them being semi-open), and I love all the control I have.

    I've never had much of a problem out of open worlds. My only issue is that the regular worlds aren't connected through a loading screen like the foreign worlds or Uni but with more leeway. I would've loved for a sim to have grown up in Riverview, moved to Sunset Valley, travel to Bridgeport for fun... something like that. No losing family or friends during a move, because your sim can always travel back to see them. Family could visit for the holidays or the kids could stay with their grandparents in the country for the summer. I think connecting the worlds like that would've been great for people whose main issue was that they couldn't fit "everything" in a world and it would've been great for story telling and progression.

    And there are so many new possibilities with something like that. If they expanded upon the schools in game, say have it where the children and teens could joins teams and competitions, they could travel to other cities and towns to compete in basketball games, spelling bees, the whole family could come out and support them. Sims that play sports or perform could travel from city to city, town to town and play. I'd gladly wait through a loading screen for something like that.

    Player or anti-commitment sims could like keep different love interests, girlfriends, or boyfriends in different towns so no one would ever know about each other though he or she will probably get caught eventually. A married sim in the city could have another child outside his or her marriage in the next town or two towns over and their husband or wife not know a thing.

    There are still so many possibilities for The Sims. These are just a few ideas but if, if they could pull off something like this:
    • towns and cities connected through loading screens while still maintaining relationships
    • a tool to create towns and cities, similar to CAW
    • CASt
    • more options for players to tailor the game to their preferences (say the town stays snow filled all year round, with a max population of 100 sims, mostly adults and children, with the only supernaturals around being werewolves and no cats)
    • More options in CAS (relation and relationship choices, skills and skill levels, babies, or if a sim will be pregnant and by who)
    • great sim personalities and traits based on the best of The Sims games
    • and better built towns and cities that they actually fix if there's a problem
    I'd be all over that game and I wouldn't mind paying over $60 for it. Nor would I mind saving for a new computer if my current one can't run it. An in depth life simulation game that truly lets me rule and control is well worth it.
    KqGXVAC.jpg
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    @ApparentlyAwesome - those are brilliant ideas! I really like the families visiting for the holidays and also not losing relationships when moving to other towns.
  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    edited January 2017
    aricarai wrote: »
    @ApparentlyAwesome - those are brilliant ideas! I really like the families visiting for the holidays and also not losing relationships when moving to other towns.

    For a long while pre-launch I predicted that's exactly how it might work.
    They could have done it easily had it not been for story progression.

    ETA (and the fact that lack of loading screens was one of their biggest selling points)
  • aricaraiaricarai Posts: 8,984 Member
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    aricarai wrote: »
    @ApparentlyAwesome - those are brilliant ideas! I really like the families visiting for the holidays and also not losing relationships when moving to other towns.

    For a long while pre-launch I predicted that's exactly how it might work.
    They could have done it easily had it not been for story progression.

    Do you ever sleep? :wink::mrgreen:

    I agree that that would be totally cool though - I think there's so many possibilities with little to no loading screens in this game - well in my mind there is, like you know, I'm not the least bit tech savvy.
  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    aricarai wrote: »
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    aricarai wrote: »
    @ApparentlyAwesome - those are brilliant ideas! I really like the families visiting for the holidays and also not losing relationships when moving to other towns.

    For a long while pre-launch I predicted that's exactly how it might work.
    They could have done it easily had it not been for story progression.

    Do you ever sleep? :wink::mrgreen:

    I agree that that would be totally cool though - I think there's so many possibilities with little to no loading screens in this game - well in my mind there is, like you know, I'm not the least bit tech savvy.

    lol Yes of course I sleep.

    I thought at one point that the roads which led out of town off the screen would eventually lead to connecting towns.
    Problem is that would either mean story progression would have to halt in the town you just left or your computer would have to crunch for every Sim in every town at once.
  • alexandreaalexandrea Posts: 2,432 Member
    My thoughts on an open world? It should've been in the game at the release.
    p6tqefj
  • Clk1143Clk1143 Posts: 1,014 Member
    Mostly what I enjoyed about the way EA did open world was the eye candy, and I loved seeing the wild animals wander about.

    Unfortunately my list of what I didn't like is a bit longer. For one the way EA did open world introduced routing bugs. Sims would get stuck outside the rabbit holes and then my sim wouldn't be able to go to work and get fired. It was difficult to get inside a building, not just work ones, because sims would take hours waving at you and standing while trying to shuffle around to let your sim pass. Lunar Lakes was an entire world of routing issues from the moment it was implemented, fortunately it at least eventually got fixed. Some sims and animals would also hide and get stuck in random corners causing the open world quickness to eventually slow down. I know I wasn't the only one who spend a bit of time resetting these sims for better performance. These routing issues had nothing to do with low computer specs. but was truly issues caused by having an open world.

    Doing rotational gameplay was also a bit of a disaster.

    I also disliked the curse of the curfews when I had many sims who couldn't go anywhere but work and home and a park due to the other places being closed.

    Then of course there were the rabbit holes. I didn't mind the rabbit holes for work, and school that kind of made sense. What I did mind was the other rabbit holes for things like eating at a cafe.

    Now there was a post a long time ago when sims 4 was still in development, I will never be able to find it again, that had a great ideal with a semi-open world. It involved doing districts and was a compromise between EA Open world and no open world. I wish I could find it again, there were pictures and everything.
  • OilbasedoleanderOilbasedoleander Posts: 2,967 Member
    I enjoyed open world because...

    1. No load screens. Just one long one at the beginning to load up your entire town and all your content and after that you're free to move about the cabin- er town or city. And let's be honest it wasn't a world... it was a town or city. Of course, there were load screens for moving to other towns like for World Adventures or for University, but after that, same thing. Going lot to lot with out load screens kept me invested and hooked and the game and hours flowed and flew by fast.

    2. This will be a downfall for rotational players, but since I always stuck with one family through out my gameplay I enjoyed seeing the AI take over and automatically story progress everyone else in the town. Seeing their families evolve along with mine while not having to play them made me a happy camper. All those friendships and when they get older and passed on. Just a really neat feature that doesn't get to much credit.

    3. The worlds (Towns or Cities) themselves were gorgeous. While TS4 has a very different style (very cartoonish with over-bloom) TS3's lightning is awesome. Especially in Monte Vista, it felt warm and welcoming. Or the special bloody sunsets in Midnight Hollow. The aurora in Aurora Skies. And I was free to explore it all of it. And I didn't think it could get any better and then seasons came along and just... Wowed me.

    4. Each town felt unique because there was no pop up map. You zoomed out and the town was the map. You could see everything from a birds eye view and it was alive. Sims walking, deer bounding, horses running and sims protesting in front of the town hall. Cars zooming around town (that weren't just background fluff!) and that was stupendous. Become the Watcher and while your sims were busy doing something and creep in on other sims. Haha. Good times.

    5. THE OPEN OCEAN!! Cruising around on that open water?! Stopping out in the middle of it and just jumping in with the sharks. Exploring new places like dive-lots and islands with no load screens? Heck yes. Awesome.

    Now for the negatives...

    1. Routing. Oh boy... did that need lots of work and patches did help alleviate the issues if only slightly. But Isla Paradiso is just unplayable for me, which is very saddening as it's quite beautiful, because routing is a nightmare. I'm on constant watch for stuck boats or sims and having to cheat/reset sim/delete objects. Luckily there were mods, but since I played with out mods and CC, it was quite a bummer.

    2... uh, well that's pretty much it. Just the routing. Haha.
  • ApparentlyAwesomeApparentlyAwesome Posts: 1,523 Member
    I'm curious... I've seen people bring this up for years, but what is it about open worlds that hurts rotational play?

    Is it that when players switch between households and return that the household they return to aren't the same as when they left (lost promises, lost opportunities, new memories, affected relationships and new jobs)? Because I always thought that was a story progression issue, not open world. Or is that the explanation EA gave or something?

    Would it be too much on people's systems to save all information on the households or at least the households played by a player in game? Couldn't something as simple as letting players check what households they don't want affected fix something like that in the future?

    I know in TS3 I played over six different households at times but if there was a promise I wanted a sim to keep I'd make sure I had that sim complete it before switching because they disappeared and when I returned it would take a while to get those to come up again as wishes. There were also sims who I didn't want employed but when I returned those sims would have jobs and that was with story progression off. I don't think story progression was ever able to be turned off entirely, even if we did turn it off in options.

    In some ways I wouldn't want story progression off entirely, but for the particular households I play I would basically want them in the state in which I left them in with no progression (job, wish, or relationship wise) unless the household I was currently controlling interacted with them. I know in the Sims 3 there were mods that made this easier so I know there's something EA/Maxis could do if they wanted to. Like:
    • Place a checkmarks on houses we want unaffected by story progression (should there be one)
    • Give us alerts and updates on those houses we checked if we left them in a state that would cause progression (alert us if the pregnant sim we left in another marked household is about to give birth and give us the option to click and switch immediately to that household)
    • No saved memories for them or sims they interact with unless it's with the current checked household that I'm playing (should there be memories)
    KqGXVAC.jpg
  • barracuda1574barracuda1574 Posts: 115 Member
    I don't really care for the open world. It's not horrible, but it doesn't add anything to the game for me, other than long travel time. I really miss customizable neighborhoods with 30 or more lots on them, like Sims 2 had.
  • SweetJealousySweetJealousy Posts: 362 Member
    The main reason for my loving open world is that I like to send different family members out doing various things and I constantly would switch back and forth between them. I don't want to leave a lot and the rest of the family that I leave behind are doing absolutely nothing. I am used to sending a teenager to a friend's house after school so they can do their homework together and socialize while at the same time, I could have another family member practicing her horse riding skills while she picks up some groceries and such at the store on horseback and then another family member can be studying or doing work related tasks/skill raising. I always need my sims to be doing something. I don't like to waste time. I am not sure, but I don't think so, that this could ever be implemented in the way that Sims 4 is set up currently. I mean, if it could, then I'd be elated!
  • HappySimmer3HappySimmer3 Posts: 6,699 Member
    I'm curious... I've seen people bring this up for years, but what is it about open worlds that hurts rotational play?

    Is it that when players switch between households and return that the household they return to aren't the same as when they left (lost promises, lost opportunities, new memories, affected relationships and new jobs)? Because I always thought that was a story progression issue, not open world. Or is that the explanation EA gave or something?

    Would it be too much on people's systems to save all information on the households or at least the households played by a player in game? Couldn't something as simple as letting players check what households they don't want affected fix something like that in the future?

    I know in TS3 I played over six different households at times but if there was a promise I wanted a sim to keep I'd make sure I had that sim complete it before switching because they disappeared and when I returned it would take a while to get those to come up again as wishes. There were also sims who I didn't want employed but when I returned those sims would have jobs and that was with story progression off. I don't think story progression was ever able to be turned off entirely, even if we did turn it off in options.

    In some ways I wouldn't want story progression off entirely, but for the particular households I play I would basically want them in the state in which I left them in with no progression (job, wish, or relationship wise) unless the household I was currently controlling interacted with them. I know in the Sims 3 there were mods that made this easier so I know there's something EA/Maxis could do if they wanted to. Like:
    • Place a checkmarks on houses we want unaffected by story progression (should there be one)
    • Give us alerts and updates on those houses we checked if we left them in a state that would cause progression (alert us if the pregnant sim we left in another marked household is about to give birth and give us the option to click and switch immediately to that household)
    • No saved memories for them or sims they interact with unless it's with the current checked household that I'm playing (should there be memories)

    Exactly this! People get confused and conflate open world with story progression. Those are two different things! Plus there are plenty of other ways to do both than how they did them in TS3.

    And SP can be turned off altogether in TS3, although there are some other systems in the game that can affect our sims (such as the career system). But there are mods out there that make it possible for players to keep certain aspects of SP from affecting their sims while they're not playing them. It's just that they can get a bit involved and some people like to keep things simple. For those people I'm not sure the design of TS4 was a great improvement, though. I think this game would lose half it's players if that MC Command Center mod was for some reason no longer functional.

    So the issue to me is not that they should NOT bring back open world; the issue is how can they do it in a way that would respect how different people like to play the game? They might not be able to perfectly please everyone, but they could come a whole lot closer than they did with the way the open world functioned in TS3.
    The Sims 30695923002_cffaca4078_t.jpg

    Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    edited January 2017
    Also for #4 - long commuting times. OP I don't get why this is even an issue for people, I really don't. I don't think driving around the world is that big a deal. And I often change the camera view so I can see the road my sim is traveling on, sort of more like first person driving, and the time goes by in a flash. But I don't think it takes all that long anyway.

    Of course you obviously think so, so one solution would be teleporting as mentioned or another solution is to cheat up more money and get your sims one of the expensive cars; they go 10 times faster than the cheap cars - because the point was to gain money and improve your sims' lives with better objects. Just like how the cheap beds are plum to sleep in, and the more expensive beds gave more energy, etc.

    Well, in Island Paradiso, I have to micromanage my mermaids and other sims around the island, or they would end up taking the long way around and take forever (a whole day to get groceries, for example!) to get to their destination.

    Traveling (and micromanaging the sims while doing so) is just tedious for me, so I usually end up using the teleportation cheat.

    Ugh, such bad memories for me. I would probably use a teleportation cheat again if Sims 5 has open world again. (Well, if Sims 5 is any good and better at optimizing performance and had busy/lively worlds, open working restaurants, grocery stores, home buseinesses, bakeries, etc, and toddlers and all of the toddler/baby stuff from Sims 2, then I would play it.)

    I rarely play any of the supernaturals, but when I first got IP I did try out the mermaids and UGH! I know exactly what you mean. What a routing nightmare when your mermaid wants to swim across the ocean to get to the side of the world you wanted to send them. Takes forever! As I recall I used the teleportation cheat a lot then too.

    But this obviously wasn't the scenario I had in mind when I responded to the OP. :)
    What I'd like to try is treat a mermaid like a mermaid. The way I enjoyed playing a homeless sim who had to walk everywhere. When you make that part of gameplay, it becomes fun. Why would a mermaid have a house for instance. Or a kitchen. They can swim everywhere and eat whatever they catch on their way. Like the homeless sim they wouldn't need anything else but an empty lot. Travelling would be what playing their life would be about. I think the frustration starts when you want to treat a mermaid like a human with strange legs ;)

    @Oilbasedoleander True (routing), but that isn't necessary. I'm absolutely sure it is possible to develop a better functioning open world for this game. They just have to do it differently than for Sims 3. Cleaning up cars every night like NRaas does already makes a big difference.
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  • FKM100FKM100 Posts: 886 Member
    edited January 2017
    Of all the features omitted from Sims 4, the open world is the one I miss the most. I really like Sims 4, especially with all the new content added by recent expansions, but I have never been able to reconcile myself to all the loading screens. And, despite the initial promises that loading times would be so short that they would be almost unnoticeable, I have seen how they have grown LONGER and LONGER in my game.

    The open world in Sims 3 was one of its best features, IMHO. I did not experience serious lag in my game - certainly not enough to interfere with my immersion, as the loading screens do in Sims 4. And it was only evident in really large worlds, with a really large saved game. If I was content to play in a smaller world, there was no lag at all. Considering how few lots are available in the Sims 4 worlds as it is, I would have happily traded the large Sims 3 worlds for something smaller and more manageable, rather than losing the open world altogether.

    Also, I did not mind the time it took for my sims to get from one location to the other. On the contrary, I enjoyed the opportunity to enjoy the scenery and experience the atmosphere of that particular world. If, for some reason, I needed my sims to get somewhere in a hurry, I could simply teleport them there. No problem.

    On the other hand, story progression in Sims 3 just did not work for me at all. It stopped working right after the first EP (World Adventures) and never worked again. Yes, I could set my sims to age and they would get older and die, but they would not marry or move in together or reproduce autonomously, so unless I played each household in rotation, my populations would just slowly die out. But this had nothing to do with the open world. It was a completely different feature.

    I do understand that Sims 4 is not designed to accommodate open worlds and so there is no point in hankering after them. However, I do think that there are a few things that EA could do to minimize the loss. For example, I find that the large and busy public areas in CL (where the festivals are held) go a long way towards making me feel that my sims are less boxed-in. It would be great if we could have more of these kind of areas, plus the ability to customize at least some of them.

    But I also think that there are ways in which EA could re-design the loading screens to be more visually and psychologically appealing. That blank white screen is totally sterile and boring. There is nothing fun or entertaining about watching a plumbob spin around. And the little messages that appear do nothing to enliven the experience. Considering the lengths to which the creative team have gone to make the sims themselves more dynamic and alive, I would have expected this same dynamism and vitality -- and creativity -- to be reflected in the loading screens (and music). Honestly, I think the Sims 1 loading screens were better than what we have now! At least there was some color and variety. The loading music was certainly way better (that Vacation music was simply the best). Really, this is something where I think the designers could make a huge difference to our experience of the game, without a great deal of effort and expense.
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