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Clearing up trolling about Sims Mobile

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  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Yet it gets things Sims 4 players have been asking for, but before them.

    How are mobile players getting what "Sims 4 players have been asking for" when those things you are so hung up on have no gameplay in SM outside of "click here for coins?" You can't even really "play careers" in SM. All they amount to is completing as many tasks as possible within a five minute window to grind up levels and unlock objects and additional gameplay. Are you really trying to say that what passes for a career and object interactions in SM is what TS4 players have been asking for?
    If you want to use metaphors, its like paying to reserve a hotel room, and then when its finally vacant, you go and find the hotel have given it to someone else.

    It's not like that. But here's what your reaction is like metaphorically.

    You check into a world class hotel that comes with state of the art accommodations--satellite TV and WiFi, round the clock hotel service with caviar, champagne, free massages, sauna and olympic-sized pool. You then pitch a fit because your heard that this hotel chain also runs a cheap $25/night motel down the street that has no WiFi, basic cable and no room service but offers free pretzels and beer and darts. And you make it seem as if the people of the motel are getting so much more than you're getting it because the world class hotel doesn't serve these things.

    You know, saying they didn't 'borrow' ideas from TS4 isn't exactly true. The Sims Mobile was absolutely inspired by the TS4 Legacy Challenge per The Sims Mobile team and SimGuruDrake. If you think they didn't look at other ideas players have requested in TS4 you aren't looking very hard.
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    Cinebar wrote: »
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Yet it gets things Sims 4 players have been asking for, but before them.

    How are mobile players getting what "Sims 4 players have been asking for" when those things you are so hung up on have no gameplay in SM outside of "click here for coins?" You can't even really "play careers" in SM. All they amount to is completing as many tasks as possible within a five minute window to grind up levels and unlock objects and additional gameplay. Are you really trying to say that what passes for a career and object interactions in SM is what TS4 players have been asking for?
    If you want to use metaphors, its like paying to reserve a hotel room, and then when its finally vacant, you go and find the hotel have given it to someone else.

    It's not like that. But here's what your reaction is like metaphorically.

    You check into a world class hotel that comes with state of the art accommodations--satellite TV and WiFi, round the clock hotel service with caviar, champagne, free massages, sauna and olympic-sized pool. You then pitch a fit because your heard that this hotel chain also runs a cheap $25/night motel down the street that has no WiFi, basic cable and no room service but offers free pretzels and beer and darts. And you make it seem as if the people of the motel are getting so much more than you're getting it because the world class hotel doesn't serve these things.

    You know, saying they didn't 'borrow' ideas from TS4 isn't exactly true. The Sims Mobile was absolutely inspired by the TS4 Legacy Challenge per The Sims Mobile team and SimGuruDrake. If you think they didn't look at other ideas players have requested in TS4 you aren't looking very hard.
    The Legacy challenge was actually invented for TS2 and only attempted to be ported to TS3 and TS4 too ;)
  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    Erpe wrote: »
    Cinebar wrote: »
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Yet it gets things Sims 4 players have been asking for, but before them.

    How are mobile players getting what "Sims 4 players have been asking for" when those things you are so hung up on have no gameplay in SM outside of "click here for coins?" You can't even really "play careers" in SM. All they amount to is completing as many tasks as possible within a five minute window to grind up levels and unlock objects and additional gameplay. Are you really trying to say that what passes for a career and object interactions in SM is what TS4 players have been asking for?
    If you want to use metaphors, its like paying to reserve a hotel room, and then when its finally vacant, you go and find the hotel have given it to someone else.

    It's not like that. But here's what your reaction is like metaphorically.

    You check into a world class hotel that comes with state of the art accommodations--satellite TV and WiFi, round the clock hotel service with caviar, champagne, free massages, sauna and olympic-sized pool. You then pitch a fit because your heard that this hotel chain also runs a cheap $25/night motel down the street that has no WiFi, basic cable and no room service but offers free pretzels and beer and darts. And you make it seem as if the people of the motel are getting so much more than you're getting it because the world class hotel doesn't serve these things.

    You know, saying they didn't 'borrow' ideas from TS4 isn't exactly true. The Sims Mobile was absolutely inspired by the TS4 Legacy Challenge per The Sims Mobile team and SimGuruDrake. If you think they didn't look at other ideas players have requested in TS4 you aren't looking very hard.
    The Legacy challenge was actually invented for TS2 and only attempted to be ported to TS3 and TS4 too ;)

    We know our history. But some said 'TS4 Legacy' diminishing where it originally was born.
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Sims Mobile is Not a "Free" Version of TS4
    Sims Mobile, like Sims Freeplay, is not a "free" version of TS4 at all. Not even close. It is in every way, shape and form a mobile game, with gameplay similar to Simpsons Tapped Out and Family Guy Freakin Mobile Game, in which the goal is to complete little actions and quests to earn coins/points/etc. in order to level up or unlock more items and places to visit.

    There are no sophisticated social interactions, no detailed build and buy modes, no detailed careers, no passage of time, anything of that sort. Literally, the gameplay all boils down to 1) "Click on sim. Wait for sim to complete action. Click on checkmark. Collect coins/points/etc. Level up." or 2) "Complete this quest/event to unlock new items/interactions/locations." All actions are in real time, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to several hours. If the action takes a few seconds, it takes a few seconds. If it takes three, four, five hours, etc., you turn off your device then check back in on your game when the hours are up.

    Any blogger or forum poster trying to leave the impression that mobile gamers are getting the exact same, fully fleshed out open sandbox game and everything else for free "plus more" is either trolling for laughs or saying that as clickbait.

    But they used our assets and are trying to attract a user base while advertising features that PC version was deprived off and it might even have been deprived of them delibarately to sell the mobile game. Such as a hard focus on family life and better family trees, while we were begging to get ours fixed for quite a while now. We can not have more than 5 generations in a tree, but they can?
    ts1depot wrote: »
    No One is Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
    There are separate teams working on TS4 and Sims Mobile. No one is robbing Peter to play Paul. Mobile is mobile. TS4 is TS4. Posters ranting that development is being "spread thin" across both projects and that time on one project is being taken away from another are trolling. The reason why they keep saying that is that they're filled with so much hatred for TS4 they're trying to spread fear and paranoia amongst other players that TS4 is "doomed" and is close to being scrapped. So they want to keep everyone thinking that Sims Mobile spells the end for TS4 (even though Sims Freeplay ran throughout the entire duration of TS3). They also want to kill excitement for the upcoming Family GP.

    I'll quote deservedCriticism on this from a different topic:
    I could've expressed myself better there. What I meant was more....back then we thought they dissolved one of the EP teams as sort of a budget cut. Yknow, someone decided Sims 4 could survive with one EP team and cut one to cut costs, and that's already frustrating enough. That the team was dissolved wasn't exactly a secret; they didn't exactly blast it in the news here, but you could find it if you wanted.

    Fast forward to now, and not only did they re-allocate those people off of the traditional Sims team, but they re-allocated them to a related project: Sims for mobile. This is extra levels of frustrating for me. This implies they still see dollar signs and profit in the Sims franchise, but instead of just letting things be and leaving that second team ready to work on Sims 4, they're trying to milk the franchise more, even though Sims for mobile has already flopped twice. It stinks of greed, it stinks of terrible management, and it stinks of valuing profit over quality.

    If some guy in a suit thought Sims 4 could survive off one EP team and cut the second one to try and reassign them to work on a new franchise or something....? That plum for us, but you can at least argue that perhaps his decision is made to just try and give us more good games and that he may have genuinely believed the negative impact would be minimal. But if he's actively reassigning them to a mobile spin-off port, let alone knowing full well that Sims mobile games have failed twice before...? Terrible priorities, and as I said, likely spawned of greed. It suggests they know the Sims is popular and loved and still has potential for profit, but instead of just giving us a quality PC product, they insist there's gold to be found in the mobile market, and that even if it means damaging our product, they should start digging. It's a giant middle finger to customers such as ourselves, as far as I'm concerned. Apparently my money just isn't good enough anymore. (and I could go off into a huuuuuuuge long speech about how seeking new customers and new demographics while screwing your old base has a history of damaging companies or having rewards negatively disproportionate to the risk involved, but I'll skip that cause it'd take too long)

    We can not have a team as big as it was in TS3 because they were working on a mobile game. They also recently got Lead Animator from TS4, meaning we get less experienced talent, while The Sims Mobile is getting the senior staff right now.
    ts1depot wrote: »
    In the end, I know that nothing I say or do here is going to stop the trolls.

    It is really rude to write off your opposition as trolls.
  • ts1depotts1depot Posts: 1,438 Member
    edited May 2017
    mirta000 wrote: »
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Sims Mobile is Not a "Free" Version of TS4
    Sims Mobile, like Sims Freeplay, is not a "free" version of TS4 at all. Not even close. It is in every way, shape and form a mobile game, with gameplay similar to Simpsons Tapped Out and Family Guy Freakin Mobile Game, in which the goal is to complete little actions and quests to earn coins/points/etc. in order to level up or unlock more items and places to visit.

    There are no sophisticated social interactions, no detailed build and buy modes, no detailed careers, no passage of time, anything of that sort. Literally, the gameplay all boils down to 1) "Click on sim. Wait for sim to complete action. Click on checkmark. Collect coins/points/etc. Level up." or 2) "Complete this quest/event to unlock new items/interactions/locations." All actions are in real time, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to several hours. If the action takes a few seconds, it takes a few seconds. If it takes three, four, five hours, etc., you turn off your device then check back in on your game when the hours are up.

    Any blogger or forum poster trying to leave the impression that mobile gamers are getting the exact same, fully fleshed out open sandbox game and everything else for free "plus more" is either trolling for laughs or saying that as clickbait.

    But they used our assets and are trying to attract a user base while advertising features that PC version was deprived off and it might even have been deprived of them delibarately to sell the mobile game. Such as a hard focus on family life and better family trees, while we were begging to get ours fixed for quite a while now. We can not have more than 5 generations in a tree, but they can?
    ts1depot wrote: »
    No One is Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
    There are separate teams working on TS4 and Sims Mobile. No one is robbing Peter to play Paul. Mobile is mobile. TS4 is TS4. Posters ranting that development is being "spread thin" across both projects and that time on one project is being taken away from another are trolling. The reason why they keep saying that is that they're filled with so much hatred for TS4 they're trying to spread fear and paranoia amongst other players that TS4 is "doomed" and is close to being scrapped. So they want to keep everyone thinking that Sims Mobile spells the end for TS4 (even though Sims Freeplay ran throughout the entire duration of TS3). They also want to kill excitement for the upcoming Family GP.

    I'll quote deservedCriticism on this from a different topic:
    I could've expressed myself better there. What I meant was more....back then we thought they dissolved one of the EP teams as sort of a budget cut. Yknow, someone decided Sims 4 could survive with one EP team and cut one to cut costs, and that's already frustrating enough. That the team was dissolved wasn't exactly a secret; they didn't exactly blast it in the news here, but you could find it if you wanted.

    Fast forward to now, and not only did they re-allocate those people off of the traditional Sims team, but they re-allocated them to a related project: Sims for mobile. This is extra levels of frustrating for me. This implies they still see dollar signs and profit in the Sims franchise, but instead of just letting things be and leaving that second team ready to work on Sims 4, they're trying to milk the franchise more, even though Sims for mobile has already flopped twice. It stinks of greed, it stinks of terrible management, and it stinks of valuing profit over quality.

    If some guy in a suit thought Sims 4 could survive off one EP team and cut the second one to try and reassign them to work on a new franchise or something....? That plum for us, but you can at least argue that perhaps his decision is made to just try and give us more good games and that he may have genuinely believed the negative impact would be minimal. But if he's actively reassigning them to a mobile spin-off port, let alone knowing full well that Sims mobile games have failed twice before...? Terrible priorities, and as I said, likely spawned of greed. It suggests they know the Sims is popular and loved and still has potential for profit, but instead of just giving us a quality PC product, they insist there's gold to be found in the mobile market, and that even if it means damaging our product, they should start digging. It's a giant middle finger to customers such as ourselves, as far as I'm concerned. Apparently my money just isn't good enough anymore. (and I could go off into a huuuuuuuge long speech about how seeking new customers and new demographics while screwing your old base has a history of damaging companies or having rewards negatively disproportionate to the risk involved, but I'll skip that cause it'd take too long)

    We can not have a team as big as it was in TS3 because they were working on a mobile game. They also recently got Lead Animator from TS4, meaning we get less experienced talent, while The Sims Mobile is getting the senior staff right now.
    ts1depot wrote: »
    In the end, I know that nothing I say or do here is going to stop the trolls.

    It is really rude to write off your opposition as trolls.

    Alrighty then.

    gX9RoFM.gif
    EiFlric.png
  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Alrighty then.

    gX9RoFM.gif

    because your tactics include jumping to other topics to call me a troll and responding with memes, I have to ask what in your opinion is untrue about what I've said? Developers DID move on from TS4 to The Sims Mobile



    and it did include faces like SimGuruRiley and SimGuruAzure. Riley WAS lead animator for TS4 meaning they're moving senior talent over to a different game.
  • simgirl1010simgirl1010 Posts: 35,708 Member
    mirta000 wrote: »
    ts1depot wrote: »
    Alrighty then.

    gX9RoFM.gif

    because your tactics include jumping to other topics to call me a troll and responding with memes, I have to ask what in your opinion is untrue about what I've said? Developers DID move on from TS4 to The Sims Mobile



    and it did include faces like SimGuruRiley and SimGuruAzure. Riley WAS lead animator for TS4 meaning they're moving senior talent over to a different game.

    A recent comment from SGD in another thread.

    Team movements are none of your concern. Unless you work directly inside this studio or within EA there is zero reason why we would have to tell you about anyone moving off to work on other projects. As I've stated many a time in the last few days: This has had zero impact on our development. You don't know how long we've been working on this project (and no I will not discuss it as it is not my place) and you didn't even seem to notice the change until a SimGuru mentioned it.

    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15751699#Comment_15751699
  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    A recent comment from SGD in another thread.

    Team movements are none of your concern. Unless you work directly inside this studio or within EA there is zero reason why we would have to tell you about anyone moving off to work on other projects. As I've stated many a time in the last few days: This has had zero impact on our development. You don't know how long we've been working on this project (and no I will not discuss it as it is not my place) and you didn't even seem to notice the change until a SimGuru mentioned it.

    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15751699#Comment_15751699

    reply on the very same thread:
    MissCherie wrote: »
    I'm sorry what? I don't want to sound disrespectful, but where have you been the past year or so? It is often discussed how slow the EP are coming, it was said by Graham (if I remember correctly), that the EP production would slow down to one a year beside every few months.

    We did notice the change, the right thing to say would be to say we didn't knew why, but saying that we didn't even notice is insulting, and it show that you think we are plum.

    fact is, TS4 has the slowest expansion development of all sims games. The severely cut the budget for sims when it came to transitioning from TS3 to TS4, in fact they lost the whole second team. While they seem to have severely slashed the budget of the main franchise, they invested money into the mobile game. I think it's very much our concern.
  • anonmysteryanonmystery Posts: 135 Member
    @mirta000

    To be fair, I had similar reservations to you, but after debating with other people on the matter , hearing from simgurdrake and also doing my own research on the game myself, I don't believe they have taken enough assets from the sims 4 for PC players to feel cheated by. Also, reading TwistedMexi'S thread on Sims Olympus, it is clear that the Sims Mobile is in no way to blame for any initial slowdowns in development.

    What sealed the deal for me was sims VIP mobile playthrough:
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=M3j0AETREZI&t=498s

    Through this it is clear that the Sims Mobile, while sharing an art-style and some concepts from Sims 4, is definitely a very different game in terms of play - style and depth. It is quite a condensed game (needs to be otherwise the amount of phone memory it would take up would be crazy!) and it seems that you, like me, mistakenly interpreted from the trailer that it was going to be a mini sims 4 with all major game play assets from the complete PC game and more. If anything there are a few small additions which are similar to the sims 4, but completely isolated from their respective PC EP and GP content, if that makes sense. The video shows it better.

    I don't think that people calling people who misunderstood the game trolls is conducive to mature discussion, but whatever. At the end of the day it's only a small matter, and I doubt ts1depot will have the humility to apologise for the name calling and accept different people had different (admittedly mistaken, but innocent) interpretations of the trailer , so I would just leave her to it.
  • ts1depotts1depot Posts: 1,438 Member
    mirta000 wrote: »
    because your tactics include jumping to other topics to call me a troll and responding with memes, I have to ask what in your opinion is untrue about what I've said? Developers DID move on from TS4 to The Sims Mobile

    Anyone for some tea? I've got pekoe and mint julep.

    EiFlric.png
  • FairyGodMotherFairyGodMother Posts: 7,406 Member
    Grabs some mint julep from @ts1depot :D
  • ts1depotts1depot Posts: 1,438 Member
    edited May 2017
    Grabs some mint julep from @ts1depot :D

    Here ya go! ;)

    450px-Skylon%2C_South_Bank%2C_London_%283315229761%29.jpg

    Aw, what the heck! Mint julep for everybody!

    EiFlric.png
  • ts1depotts1depot Posts: 1,438 Member
    edited May 2017
    At the end of the day it's only a small matter, and I doubt ts1depot will have the humility to apologise for the name calling and accept different people had different (admittedly mistaken, but innocent) interpretations of the trailer , so I would just leave her to it.

    THAT'S IT!

    M0w91Kq.gif
    Post edited by ts1depot on
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  • ts1depotts1depot Posts: 1,438 Member
    edited May 2017
    Just going to leave this here before I go:

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  • mirta000mirta000 Posts: 2,974 Member
    the topic is mine, the comment is not mine. So eh? And mission accomplished? What mission? We still lost our player stories index and people hosting multi-game contests and stories will still have to move on from the forums because changes won't be done.
  • SimGuruDrakeSimGuruDrake Posts: 1,648 SimGuru (retired)
    Hello everyone!

    I'm going to be closing this thread as I have already made a statement in here that I hope cleared things up.

    Now things are going around in circles so its better to close than to have anyone get into arguments :)

    Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
    Global Community Manager for Maxis / The Sims
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