The Sims 4 isn't Olympus. Olympus was an online sims game that was being developed by EA Brightlight but EA Brightlight died so it was passed on to the sims studio; they were going to premiere it in 2013 but because of SimsCity awful launch it was canned. The Sims 4 when it was in development was called Icarus not Olympus.
Knew someone would say this
It's true tho. The Sims 4 was watermarked as Icarus in it's 2013 leaks in March.
The Sims 4 isn't Olympus. Olympus was an online sims game that was being developed by EA Brightlight but EA Brightlight died so it was passed on to the sims studio; they were going to premiere it in 2013 but because of SimsCity awful launch it was canned. The Sims 4 when it was in development was called Icarus not Olympus.
Knew someone would say this
It's true tho. The Sims 4 was watermarked as Icarus in it's 2013 leaks in March.
No, it's not the article gives proof. They found the code in the game.
Why do people care what the game had started out to be? I, personally, care more about what the game has become and is becoming.
Because you were born a baby, does it mean you're going to stay a baby forever? No.
Same here. Sims 4 is no longer Olympus. Let it go.
Because it still limits whether we can have an open district/neighborhood let alone full open world. It makes it more difficult and time consuming if at all even possible. Many would like at least an open neighborhood without having to go to a loading screen when the house next door is literally one step away.
pen No it does not. The decision to close worlds was made to avoid all the horrible lagging that Sims 3 had. If they wanted to, they could make sims 4 oneighborhood even now. T
No, its still Olympus they just made it offline.The reason is limited now. Is because its Olympus it has nothing to do with performance issues sims 3. Because this was never meant to be a sequel or an offline game.
And it still isn't a sequel. It's still Olympus. It's still not an offline game. And we'll never get toddlers. And pools are not possible.
I'm done here. Bye.
Listen I'm not trying to attack or argue with you. I don' think anyone is denying is still is a sequel by name now. The fact the matter is was originally never meant to be a sequel .How it was plan it was still never meant to be a sequel to the sims. I don't know how having toddlers, and pools now don't make it Olympus. It still is Olympus, projects change overtime. Being offline doesn't make it not Olympus anymore.
At the same time I'm not sure that any of that matters outside of trying to get one up on the opposition in the ongoing faction war. The Sims 4 is exactly what it was yesterday and the day before. If you enjoyed it yesterday, then you'll enjoy it today. If you didn't enjoy it yesterday then you won't today either. Its origin changes nothing.
Actually, it does change the fact that now we know why it's lacking?
Does it? Is it lacking? It hasn't changed my mind. Hasn't changed the mind of many, many others. All that it has done is give ammunition on the forums.
In comparison to other sims games, it's lacking. It doesn't feel like a sequel to the early sim games. If you enjoy it good for you. Glad that people like the game. The game is better now, and getting better. It just sad that s its potential got completely ruin. Because is Olympus, to me hey should have just made a sequel from scratch. Instead of trying to make Olympus into a sequel.I guess the confirmation to me is a form of closer.
Why do people care what the game had started out to be? I, personally, care more about what the game has become and is becoming.
Because you were born a baby, does it mean you're going to stay a baby forever? No.
Same here. Sims 4 is no longer Olympus. Let it go.
Because it still limits whether we can have an open district/neighborhood let alone full open world. It makes it more difficult and time consuming if at all even possible. Many would like at least an open neighborhood without having to go to a loading screen when the house next door is literally one step away.
pen No it does not. The decision to close worlds was made to avoid all the horrible lagging that Sims 3 had. If they wanted to, they could make sims 4 oneighborhood even now. T
No, its still Olympus they just made it offline.The reason is limited now. Is because its Olympus it has nothing to do with performance issues sims 3. Because this was never meant to be a sequel or an offline game.
And it still isn't a sequel. It's still Olympus. It's still not an offline game. And we'll never get toddlers. And pools are not possible.
I'm done here. Bye.
Listen I'm not trying to attack or argue with you. I don' think anyone is denying is still is a sequel by name now. The fact the matter is was originally never meant to be a sequel .How it was plan it was still never meant to be a sequel to the sims. I don't know how having toddlers, and pools now don't make it Olympus. It still is Olympus, projects change overtime. Being offline doesn't make it not Olympus anymore.
At the same time I'm not sure that any of that matters outside of trying to get one up on the opposition in the ongoing faction war. The Sims 4 is exactly what it was yesterday and the day before. If you enjoyed it yesterday, then you'll enjoy it today. If you didn't enjoy it yesterday then you won't today either. Its origin changes nothing.
Actually, it does change the fact that now we know why it's lacking?
Does it? Is it lacking? It hasn't changed my mind. Hasn't changed the mind of many, many others. All that it has done is give ammunition on the forums.
In comparison to other sims games, it's lacking. It doesn't feel like a sequel to the early sim games. If you enjoy it good for you. Glad that people like the game. The game is better now, and getting better. It just sad that s its potential got completely ruin. Because is Olympus, to me hey should have just made a sequel from scratch. Instead of trying to make Olympus into a sequel.I guess the confirmation to me is a form of closer.
In your most humble of opinions.
I said in my post "to me ". So I was making it clear that this was my opinion.
Why do people care what the game had started out to be? I, personally, care more about what the game has become and is becoming.
Because you were born a baby, does it mean you're going to stay a baby forever? No.
Same here. Sims 4 is no longer Olympus. Let it go.
Because it still limits whether we can have an open district/neighborhood let alone full open world. It makes it more difficult and time consuming if at all even possible. Many would like at least an open neighborhood without having to go to a loading screen when the house next door is literally one step away.
pen No it does not. The decision to close worlds was made to avoid all the horrible lagging that Sims 3 had. If they wanted to, they could make sims 4 oneighborhood even now. T
No, its still Olympus they just made it offline.The reason is limited now. Is because its Olympus it has nothing to do with performance issues sims 3. Because this was never meant to be a sequel or an offline game.
And it still isn't a sequel. It's still Olympus. It's still not an offline game. And we'll never get toddlers. And pools are not possible.
I'm done here. Bye.
Listen I'm not trying to attack or argue with you. I don' think anyone is denying is still is a sequel by name now. The fact the matter is was originally never meant to be a sequel .How it was plan it was still never meant to be a sequel to the sims. I don't know how having toddlers, and pools now don't make it Olympus. It still is Olympus, projects change overtime. Being offline doesn't make it not Olympus anymore.
At the same time I'm not sure that any of that matters outside of trying to get one up on the opposition in the ongoing faction war. The Sims 4 is exactly what it was yesterday and the day before. If you enjoyed it yesterday, then you'll enjoy it today. If you didn't enjoy it yesterday then you won't today either. Its origin changes nothing.
Actually, it does change the fact that now we know why it's lacking?
Does it? Is it lacking? It hasn't changed my mind. Hasn't changed the mind of many, many others. All that it has done is give ammunition on the forums.
In comparison to other sims games, it's lacking. It doesn't feel like a sequel to the early sim games. If you enjoy it good for you. Glad that people like the game. The game is better now, and getting better. It just sad that s its potential got completely ruin. Because is Olympus, to me hey should have just made a sequel from scratch. Instead of trying to make Olympus into a sequel.I guess the confirmation to me is a form of closer.
In your most humble of opinions.
I said in my post "to me ". So I was making it clear that this was my opinion.
Yes, which completely demonstrates that this information about Olympus provides nothing but forum fodder. It changes no hearts or minds. It changes no direction in the product. It's just a thing to fight about.
The Sims 4 isn't Olympus. Olympus was an online sims game that was being developed by EA Brightlight but EA Brightlight died so it was passed on to the sims studio; they were going to premiere it in 2013 but because of SimsCity awful launch it was canned. The Sims 4 when it was in development was called Icarus not Olympus.
Knew someone would say this
It's true tho. The Sims 4 was watermarked as Icarus in it's 2013 leaks in March.
No, it's not the article gives proof. They found the code in the game.
They found a UI design from Olympus which isn't shocking since Patrick Kelly worked on Ui Designs for two versions of potential online Sims games which were Icarus & Olympus. Olympus was being worked on by EAbrightlight but they died so it was passed on to the sims studio but it was canned because of SimsCity awful launch. Icarus (The Sims 4) was prototyped for online mode. They also found some evidence that Sims 4 was meant to have an online/multiplayer which was already well known if you were around when the Sims 4 was being leaked. http://beyondsims.com/47465/remember-those-sims-4-concepts/
At the same time I'm not sure that any of that matters outside of trying to get one up on the opposition in the ongoing faction war. The Sims 4 is exactly what it was yesterday and the day before. If you enjoyed it yesterday, then you'll enjoy it today. If you didn't enjoy it yesterday then you won't today either. Its origin changes nothing.
In terms of playing the game, it doesn't matter. It is understandable that long-time Sims fans may be curious about it. It is also possible that arguing about the origin of Sims 4 is more fun than playing Sims 4 itself.
At the same time I'm not sure that any of that matters outside of trying to get one up on the opposition in the ongoing faction war. The Sims 4 is exactly what it was yesterday and the day before. If you enjoyed it yesterday, then you'll enjoy it today. If you didn't enjoy it yesterday then you won't today either. Its origin changes nothing.
In terms of playing the game, it doesn't matter. It is understandable that long-time Sims fans may be curious about it. It is also possible that arguing about the origin of Sims 4 is more fun than playing Sims 4 itself.
It's fun to learn/talk about these things. I love looking at old beta images of TS2 and reading old articles about other sim games.. lol.
At the same time I'm not sure that any of that matters outside of trying to get one up on the opposition in the ongoing faction war. The Sims 4 is exactly what it was yesterday and the day before. If you enjoyed it yesterday, then you'll enjoy it today. If you didn't enjoy it yesterday then you won't today either. Its origin changes nothing.
In terms of playing the game, it doesn't matter. It is understandable that long-time Sims fans may be curious about it. It is also possible that arguing about the origin of Sims 4 is more fun than playing Sims 4 itself.
Yep, I published this for closure and certainty... and because I love data. I don't intend for anyone to argue over it, that'd be the epitome of spilled milk at this point.
I thought the UI being Olympus was common knowledge?
@scumbumbo posted on MTS2 back in 2014 that "There is an Olympus library in the user interface code."
And you don't even need to dig around codes to know the UI is Olympus. Every time the game generates a lastUIException.txt it usually blatantly references to Olympus. For example, here's an user posting their lastUIException on our forums.
I would like for the Sims to be able to swim in the ocean why put an ocean in if you can't swim in it, I do wish they would open the world up I have noticed that is open a little in the city pack.
I thought the UI being Olympus was common knowledge?
@scumbumbo posted on MTS2 back in 2014 that "There is an Olympus library in the user interface code."
And you don't even need to dig around codes to know the UI is Olumpus. Every time the game generates a lastUIException.txt it usually blatantly references to Olumpus. For example, here's an user posting their lastUIException on our forums.
Yep. But yet there was plenty of discussion around here that Olympus must have been The Sims Mobile. So confirming it further was apparently necessary. We've known about the UI for sometime, I just added in the C++ references as well.
To be honest in my opinion, I think the Olympus and icarus thing is a codename for the same thing just different development stages bit like how windows 7 had Vienna and blackcomb but at the end of the day formed into what it is today.
"For me" it is more than obvious that The Sims 4 was actually Olympus. Otherwise, we would not even have all these references to the real-time multiplayer functionalities that were found by TwistedMexi when decompiling the current game code. I have no doubt that after the disaster when SimCity was released, Maxis gave up the original multiplayer project and made the necessary adaptations and changes to make the game offline. Something has to explain why the hell The Sims 4 was released with thousands, thousands, thousands of missing features. The base game almost had nothing and was largely criticized. It has been chosen as one of the most disappointing games of 2014. And to this day there are still some important features missing as a terrain tool, lake tool, independent foundations, etc. Tools that I walk into ever more doubt that one day will return, after all, players who build are being neglected by The Sims Studio for a long time ago and only contemplating the people who play in life mode. Next addition from The Sims Studio to Build Mode: Spiral Stairs. Great addition! (being as sarcastic as possible).
The Sims 4 is a game that has improved a lot since it was released in 2014. Many features have returned, many new features have been added, the problem is that many things are still lacking, and everything looks very "small" and limited. With each expansion released, players face new limitations. The pack name should be changed from "Expansion Pack" to "Limitation Pack". Haha ~~
I REALLY hope they don'tmake the same development mistake in The Sims 5, but I believe they will not, at least not after the massive criticism that The Sims 4 suffered and how the media reverberated it. I hope they know very well what they are developing and bring what the players really want: freedom and personalization.
Going to answer your questions in-line: doesn't necessarily mean it "is Olympus." Right?
>Yes, the UI is Olympus. Olympus was never the whole game, it was the UI project that the UI designer showed off on his own website. Because online elements were present in the concept video, people just started associating Olympus with the whole game. In reality, "Icarus" was likely the name of the online elements (this was found on a maxis employee's resume at one point). It's common for corporate environments to section off development teams under different project codenames.
so I'm confused as to what it would have to do with TS4 code and Olympus?
Actually you're spot on, the point is that TSM wasn't in the works back during Olympus. (or maybe it was... but it was a completely separate game either way). The reason it's mentioned is because rumors sprouted up after TSM's launch that "TSM must be Olympus". I'm saying that no, TSM has nothing to do with Olympus.
I was under the impression that large-scale online stuff requires a heck of a lot more than that.
Yes, the stuff in the C++ code are basically scraps of code they didn't bother removing. They aren't hurting anything since they're unused, it's more common than most developers would care to admit. For sake of brevity I didn't go into the Python code in depth because it's fairly common knowledge by now, but if you read my first bullet point you'll see I mention the whole game is designed in a way to support multiplayer (See comment on Protocol Buffers). We have functions like add_client and remove_client, client_manager, etc. These functions are all designed in a way to add multiple players to a single zone. The code has just been adapted for singleplayer, the infrastructure is still very much a multiplayer design. The distributor class is particularly interesting,
Makes sense, but I'm still not clear on this point:
For sake of brevity I didn't go into the Python code in depth because it's fairly common knowledge by now, but if you read my first bullet point you'll see I mention the whole game is designed in a way to support multiplayer (See comment on Protocol Buffers). We have functions like add_client and remove_client, client_manager, etc. These functions are all designed in a way to add multiple players to a single zone. The code has just been adapted for singleplayer, the infrastructure is still very much a multiplayer design. The distributor class is particularly interesting,
Couldn't this also be done in the case of support for co-op? Which, while certainly a kind of online, is not the same as creating a game that is intended to *only* be played online? Cause to me, co-op would make a lot more sense as something they wanted to do, but shelved. It would be something that introduces the series to the concept of playing with others in real-time, without abandoning the single-player structure that the game's dedicated fan base was built on. And it's not as though they've never shelved or put off something that they wanted to include at launch because they didn't have time to finish it; the prevailing theory seems to be that they saw the failure of SimCity on a business level and decided at that point to scrap TS4 from being a completely online game. But we now know that with toddlers, for example, they wanted to get them in pretty much as far back as launch, but were struggling to fit it in.
So I guess what I'm saying is, is this truly case-closed-shut that TS4 couldn't possibly have not been planned as an online-only game? Or just that it was built to support online play? (Big difference there, to me.)
Co-op requires the same infrastructure as any other multiplayer game.
If you mean co-op only in certain aspects of the game, then no because they whole platform is designed as if it was going to be a server instance for each zone. I haven't said it was always-online, only that it was definitely going to be a multiplayer game. But if we look at SimCity's which was in development at the time, the concept videos, the smaller "neighborhood" components of the worlds, and several of the C++ entries implying you would need to get all updates before you could login, it certainly has the hallmarks of an always-online game.
I'm thinking of co-op like Borderlands 2, where the game can be played entirely as single-player or it can be played entirely as multi-player, or a mixture of the two.
If you didn't mean it as always-online, then I interpreted something inaccurately. I thought the proposed assumption/argument was that because it has online components, and given the history of SimCity, it was originally intended as an online-only game and that idea was canned due to SimCity's failure.
But they found the code in the game. This is not talking about why Olympus was can. (I was skeptical too)It is instead showing evidence in the game files.
I think the person's point is that just because the name Olympus is in the files doesn't necessarily mean that the TS4 project was the first time that code was used.
Which is actually supported, in a way, by TwistedMexican's statement: "Yes, the stuff in the C++ code are basically scraps of code they didn't bother removing. They aren't hurting anything since they're unused, it's more common than most developers would care to admit."
He's referring to the server code here, but if it's fairly common practice to not bother removing unused code, I would think it logically follows that it's also fairly common practice to re-use code without bothering to give it an entirely new name, especially if it's a secret project name to begin with. As someone who has some experience with code, it could be rather tedious going in and changing the name in everything just so that it has a unique project name (and risk wasted time on mundane issues in the process, due to accidentally missing areas where you needed to change the name).
Now I'm not saying that *is* what happened. But rather that we can't really know for sure based on the code itself.
As someone who has some experience with code, it could be rather tedious going in and changing the name in everything just so that it has a unique project name (and risk wasted time on mundane issues in the process, due to accidentally missing areas where you needed to change the name).
That's not really accurate, most IDE's, such as Scaleform Studio (which is what was used for TS4's UI) allow for refactoring like renaming all references to an item when you rename it.
As someone who has some experience with code, it could be rather tedious going in and changing the name in everything just so that it has a unique project name (and risk wasted time on mundane issues in the process, due to accidentally missing areas where you needed to change the name).
That's not really accurate, most IDE's, such as Scaleform Studio (which is what was used for TS4's UI) allow for refactoring like renaming all references to an item when you rename it.
I don't see that what I said is inaccurate. I said it could be tedious and risk time wasted on errors, which in some cases, it might be. Perhaps in this one it was not, given what you're saying about Scaleform. But it is a thing that can be the case in some instances. The point still stands though that they wouldn't necessarily bother to change the project name if they were carrying over the code; easy to change or no, they clearly ended up strapped for time. So I don't think it's completely implausible to theorize that given the possibility of carried over code, they might not have bothered to rename the project, especially if the other project was scrapped.
It started of as the 'failed' Olympus but has evolved into my favorite iteration of the franchise!
Live your life to the fullest, don't wait for a miracle to happen, be the miracle to make things happen.
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.
Comments
It's true tho. The Sims 4 was watermarked as Icarus in it's 2013 leaks in March.
No, it's not the article gives proof. They found the code in the game.
In your most humble of opinions.
I said in my post "to me ". So I was making it clear that this was my opinion.
Yes, which completely demonstrates that this information about Olympus provides nothing but forum fodder. It changes no hearts or minds. It changes no direction in the product. It's just a thing to fight about.
They found a UI design from Olympus which isn't shocking since Patrick Kelly worked on Ui Designs for two versions of potential online Sims games which were Icarus & Olympus. Olympus was being worked on by EAbrightlight but they died so it was passed on to the sims studio but it was canned because of SimsCity awful launch. Icarus (The Sims 4) was prototyped for online mode. They also found some evidence that Sims 4 was meant to have an online/multiplayer which was already well known if you were around when the Sims 4 was being leaked. http://beyondsims.com/47465/remember-those-sims-4-concepts/
It's fun to learn/talk about these things.
Yep, I published this for closure and certainty... and because I love data. I don't intend for anyone to argue over it, that'd be the epitome of spilled milk at this point.
@scumbumbo posted on MTS2 back in 2014 that "There is an Olympus library in the user interface code."
And you don't even need to dig around codes to know the UI is Olympus. Every time the game generates a lastUIException.txt it usually blatantly references to Olympus. For example, here's an user posting their lastUIException on our forums.
Yep. But yet there was plenty of discussion around here that Olympus must have been The Sims Mobile. So confirming it further was apparently necessary. We've known about the UI for sometime, I just added in the C++ references as well.
The Sims 4 is a game that has improved a lot since it was released in 2014. Many features have returned, many new features have been added, the problem is that many things are still lacking, and everything looks very "small" and limited. With each expansion released, players face new limitations. The pack name should be changed from "Expansion Pack" to "Limitation Pack". Haha ~~
I REALLY hope they don'tmake the same development mistake in The Sims 5, but I believe they will not, at least not after the massive criticism that The Sims 4 suffered and how the media reverberated it. I hope they know very well what they are developing and bring what the players really want: freedom and personalization.
Just for curiosity, look what i found:
If you didn't mean it as always-online, then I interpreted something inaccurately. I thought the proposed assumption/argument was that because it has online components, and given the history of SimCity, it was originally intended as an online-only game and that idea was canned due to SimCity's failure.
I think the person's point is that just because the name Olympus is in the files doesn't necessarily mean that the TS4 project was the first time that code was used.
Which is actually supported, in a way, by TwistedMexican's statement: "Yes, the stuff in the C++ code are basically scraps of code they didn't bother removing. They aren't hurting anything since they're unused, it's more common than most developers would care to admit."
He's referring to the server code here, but if it's fairly common practice to not bother removing unused code, I would think it logically follows that it's also fairly common practice to re-use code without bothering to give it an entirely new name, especially if it's a secret project name to begin with. As someone who has some experience with code, it could be rather tedious going in and changing the name in everything just so that it has a unique project name (and risk wasted time on mundane issues in the process, due to accidentally missing areas where you needed to change the name).
Now I'm not saying that *is* what happened. But rather that we can't really know for sure based on the code itself.
That's not really accurate, most IDE's, such as Scaleform Studio (which is what was used for TS4's UI) allow for refactoring like renaming all references to an item when you rename it.
Sometimes your creativity is limited where you use it most, but you can use those limitations to inspire new forms of creativity you may never have thought of beforehand.