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Including Laundry as a potential SP concept for us to vote for was a mistake
DeservedCriticism
Posts: 2,251 Member
I've touched on this once before but I feel it's worth saying again with this new gameplay object vote.
I feel like they've effectively accidently tanked this whole project by giving us an "illusion of choice" that's more or less already decided. That's not to say that it's truly already decided, but I do feel the deck is stacked. Laundry as a concept has been semi-requested since release, so it's had almost 3 years to build hype. Everything else listed is entirely new, and I doubt they really stand a chance. That would require a majority of people all decide and agree this pack needs to take a rather sudden U-turn and go in a different direction from the one we've expected since the announcement of this project.
What's more, let's imagine a scenario where Laundry loses. The vote is tallied and surprise surprise, laundry actually loses. What now? A non-insignificant portion of the community that's thought for months now that they'd get laundry...? They're now disappointed and want laundry all the same. They're complaining that their beloved, established concept should not be glossed over and not included just over a popularity contest. Either they press the team to release this anyways and make Laundry's inclusion on the list rather moot, or they don't revisit Laundry and that disappointment and frustration remains. The point is that when established ideas are included in polling, then they either have a huge advantage towards winning OR disappointment is guarenteed when they lose. Nectar Making for example, I promise will get some people speaking out about their worries, fears and disappointment that we won't get it if and when it loses, since it also has a couple fans around.
I feel like including Laundry on a list of candidates we could vote for is akin to if they told us we could vote for the EP of 2018, and then gave us a list of potential EPs including Superheroes, an Expansion to let us make School an Active career to join our kids at school, an expansion to let us build and run a city's political policies and rules, an Expansion to add in new hobby-based skills, and finally Seasons. Gee, I wonder which one people will vote for!? That's not even to say the first four ideas are bad, (and that's precisely the problem!) it's just that people have made it clear they want Seasons and would likely pick it if they had to choose....and if it loses, as I said that's not much better either because many people would be in an uproar and demand it be done anyways.
It's just a real shame to see because some of the alternative ideas we've seen are not bad. Some of them are quite good....and that's the problem. Some are good, but because of the way they've been introduced to us and because they're forced to fight an uphill battle, they're likely to lose and be viewed as unpopular ideas when they may be perfectly solid concepts, just that they were unfortunate enough to be entered in a popularity contest where the deck is stacked. Dangerous stuff was a concept a lot of people sounded super interested in, but it lost. Some of these gameplay objects are surprisingly creative and interesting, but they may inevitably lose to laundry. What happens to them after...? Is it a fair portrayal of their popularity when they must compete with an existing concept people want to see return...?
My point is I feel this whole project could've been better if all candidates had to be new, creative ideas that haven't really been done before. Laundry is something that I feel the Sims team could've figured out for themselves that there was enough demand for to make a stuff pack, but when you take an established idea like that and pit it against new and creative ones, it's either a sure-win that makes the new ideas (wrongly) look bad or unpopular by comparison OR fans are disappointed and frustrated when they see it lose and realize they may never get it, and now they wanna know why an established and beloved idea might not return just because it wasn't THE most demanded idea ever. Yes I'm aware game developers themselves face disappointment when there isn't time or the funding on hand to complete an idea, but I'm not sure if trying to convey such disappointment to fans is the intention, or if it was, if that's a good idea either.
If we had reserved this for new ideas only, then there's no second-guessing about what's most popular and winning the contest as a right to be made seems fair. This though...? Disappointment and frustration seem guarenteed.
I feel like they've effectively accidently tanked this whole project by giving us an "illusion of choice" that's more or less already decided. That's not to say that it's truly already decided, but I do feel the deck is stacked. Laundry as a concept has been semi-requested since release, so it's had almost 3 years to build hype. Everything else listed is entirely new, and I doubt they really stand a chance. That would require a majority of people all decide and agree this pack needs to take a rather sudden U-turn and go in a different direction from the one we've expected since the announcement of this project.
What's more, let's imagine a scenario where Laundry loses. The vote is tallied and surprise surprise, laundry actually loses. What now? A non-insignificant portion of the community that's thought for months now that they'd get laundry...? They're now disappointed and want laundry all the same. They're complaining that their beloved, established concept should not be glossed over and not included just over a popularity contest. Either they press the team to release this anyways and make Laundry's inclusion on the list rather moot, or they don't revisit Laundry and that disappointment and frustration remains. The point is that when established ideas are included in polling, then they either have a huge advantage towards winning OR disappointment is guarenteed when they lose. Nectar Making for example, I promise will get some people speaking out about their worries, fears and disappointment that we won't get it if and when it loses, since it also has a couple fans around.
I feel like including Laundry on a list of candidates we could vote for is akin to if they told us we could vote for the EP of 2018, and then gave us a list of potential EPs including Superheroes, an Expansion to let us make School an Active career to join our kids at school, an expansion to let us build and run a city's political policies and rules, an Expansion to add in new hobby-based skills, and finally Seasons. Gee, I wonder which one people will vote for!? That's not even to say the first four ideas are bad, (and that's precisely the problem!) it's just that people have made it clear they want Seasons and would likely pick it if they had to choose....and if it loses, as I said that's not much better either because many people would be in an uproar and demand it be done anyways.
It's just a real shame to see because some of the alternative ideas we've seen are not bad. Some of them are quite good....and that's the problem. Some are good, but because of the way they've been introduced to us and because they're forced to fight an uphill battle, they're likely to lose and be viewed as unpopular ideas when they may be perfectly solid concepts, just that they were unfortunate enough to be entered in a popularity contest where the deck is stacked. Dangerous stuff was a concept a lot of people sounded super interested in, but it lost. Some of these gameplay objects are surprisingly creative and interesting, but they may inevitably lose to laundry. What happens to them after...? Is it a fair portrayal of their popularity when they must compete with an existing concept people want to see return...?
My point is I feel this whole project could've been better if all candidates had to be new, creative ideas that haven't really been done before. Laundry is something that I feel the Sims team could've figured out for themselves that there was enough demand for to make a stuff pack, but when you take an established idea like that and pit it against new and creative ones, it's either a sure-win that makes the new ideas (wrongly) look bad or unpopular by comparison OR fans are disappointed and frustrated when they see it lose and realize they may never get it, and now they wanna know why an established and beloved idea might not return just because it wasn't THE most demanded idea ever. Yes I'm aware game developers themselves face disappointment when there isn't time or the funding on hand to complete an idea, but I'm not sure if trying to convey such disappointment to fans is the intention, or if it was, if that's a good idea either.
If we had reserved this for new ideas only, then there's no second-guessing about what's most popular and winning the contest as a right to be made seems fair. This though...? Disappointment and frustration seem guarenteed.
"Who are you, that do not know your history?"
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How on earth did you reach that conclusion?
I'm saying that by pitting new ideas up against an established, popular idea that pre-dates this little project, they've skewed the results and can't exactly give an accurate depiction of how popular the new ideas truly are since their popularity must compete with something that's been established before. Furthermore, if laundry loses, it's either gonna disappoint a lot of people who they'll wind up making it anyways due to demand, thus making it's inclusion in the options rather moot.
I would go so far as to say that drawing in people who are extra passionate about a particular feature could be a strategic boon, as it means those people are more likely to learn about the workings of the dev process and understand a bit better why their favorite features don't get put into the game immediately, all at once.
In other words, there's contention, but not necessarily destructive contention. Most of it may be constructive contention.
Wedding, starter (ladders, spiral stairs, bunk beds, etc.), and laundry are very much requested game play for the sims4.
This idea may have sounded good on paper but it doesn't work for already requested game play. If the Devs had picked a theme and given it different game play options, there would be less strife on the forums.
Take the dangerous pack for example, perma death for sims, wounded sims (arm and leg casts), or death from nature (meteors, etc.).
Then let us vote on the different choices and see how we voted for the options. They would have a clear idea of what kind of game play we want.
Time will tell but three options (one of which is laundry) appear to be doing very well with many passionate advocates. Carbon conscious seems doomed.
How on earth is laundry an established "popular" idea? It came with 3 and I've seen a lot of people say they didn't like it, or tired of it quickly and that it adds NOTHING to the game.
Not to mention that the living off the land seems to be doing VERY well.
I don't get the purpose of this thread.
That's as simple as stating "we've recognized some of the more popular ideas people want to see return from previous games and plan to do many of them on our own, but for this project we'll be using new ideas exclusively."
I mean I made a prediction the moment this was announced that Laundry would win, and that slowly seems to be coming to fruition. It's just once again an annoyance because now they've taken a step further and made it worse: laundry is now competing with nectar making, both of which are established ideas. I'm sure plenty of people would like to see both, but now we must choose. People would not be happy if we had to choose between Pets and Seasons, and now we have to choose between laundry and nectar making.
I just think that while this project may have had the intention of educating about the process, it's also unintentionally giving them some skewed feedback and data about the popularity of these new ideas, precisely because they have to compete with a popular, already-established idea.
I think you missed the point of the thread and general idea.
It comes down to a common saying (at least here in America). Go with the devil you know. It refers to a situation where you are pressed with a choice (doesn't always have to be a bad choice), and your choice should/would be to side with the situation/person you are familiar with, rather than a new rouge element. The ultimate safe play as it were.
Part of it is because laundry is a highly requested feature, but another large part is because its a safe bet. That's the (perceived) problem with the current outlook.
And another thing too, being able to compete with the easy choice doesn't mean those other ideas are not good. Clearly alot of people here agree that ALL of them are good.
They all sound interesting and fun. The problem is you can only have one....for now and maybe ever.
To give you an analogy:
Let's say you hold a contest to try to give exposure to a bunch of teen singers that show talent and promise in your area. You gather them up, have them all sing on the radio, and then have people vote on who they want to send out to Hollywood to record a CD in hopes of kickstarting a future career.
....Except one of those singers isn't exactly "lesser-known" or a young teen singer. It's Lady Gaga disguised as a schoolgirl. Suddenly your contest has a bunch of amateurs competing with a veteran singer that's already gotten exposure. See the problem...?
Even IF someone else were to beat her, I feel that this skews results and gives a wrong impression of the quality, popularity and rankings of the other competitors.
That's the problem we face here. People may dispute that Laundry has an advantage by being a feature that's already been included before, but I firmly believe it does. That's exposure, that's people looking at an idea and instead of asking themselves "but would this work well in practice...?" They don't have to. They remember Sims 3, imagine laundry will look identical to that, and thus they know exactly what they'll get and that assurance helps them feel less hesitant about voting for it. I promise you some people have voted precisely because they wonder how well something like Off the Grid might be done, but they knew Laundry was a sure-bet so they voted for that despite liking Off the Grid too. Nectar Making has a similar advantage to Laundry, but it doesn't have as large of a hype train. Nectar Making has been "hidden" only until this stage; we weren't really expecting to see it until recently, while Laundry has been talked about since day one of this project. As such, people are already counting on laundry, but the same cannot be said for Nectar making.
Point is that this project would function better with a level playing field. I'm not saying don't make laundry; on the contrary, I'm saying laundry should've been an SP they planned on making without including it in this project. But if you go back and look at the original concepts we could vote on...? All the others were new or hadn't been done before, eco-living immediately advertised the idea of laundry and that's precisely why people voted for it. Even now, this vote seems like "a joke" in the sense that we can go back and look and see that laundry was directly advertised whereas some of these other concepts were not. It's clear people are invested in the idea and have been for months now, so I would be very surprised if it lost. (even moreso if it lost to something that isn't Nectar Making)
first there where ghost and pools those have return
second dishwashers we got those back
then there where toddlers we got those back in the game
now its washers and dryers that are requested and the option to do laundry
and i would not be suprise if the next highly ask content is cars and buglars
these are the basics highly requested content in the game that i have paraly listed the list is very long
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1923-2016 mamie
As for the statement... at a certain point, words only mean so much. If words were all that's needed, they could just release some word documents on how the dev process works, instead of doing an elaborate process that involves our input. Sometimes people need to be shown something and get involved in it to learn it.
That said, and this kinda proves my point about words sometimes missing the mark in making a lasting impression, I believe they did actually say a statement along those lines... that the unused ideas are not being discarded permanently and could become part of future content at some point. They aren't making us choose between, analogous to, Pets and Seasons because there's no statement that getting one of these concepts means the other will never happen in any capacity. They are allowing us and encouraging us to partake in a process, with the ultimate aim to be to teach us how it works and do something collaborative, not get precise data or make the perfect pack. (At least, that is how they are describing it that I've seen.)
Part of the reason this project exists is to empower players to get a fun piece of content that's important to them, in a relatively short period of time. When we selected the initial themes that players could vote on, and wrote the descriptions of what those themes could potentially include, they were ideas that were pulled directly from community requests and player feedback. We also purposely excluded any themes and features from the voting options that we already have plans to create. If it's an option to vote on in this project, it's fair to say that there are no immediate or concrete plans for us to build these things in-game. That's part of the difficulty of building a game that's simulating life... there's an abundance of fantastic features we can choose to create at any time, which means we don't get to other equally great features until later, or at all.
Whether some ideas were inherently more popular than others isn't an illusion of choice, it's simply representative of the opinions held by a majority of Sims players who participate in this project.
Ultimately, I don't think any of us on the development team are looking at the results of the votes and thinking that some options simply weren't popular enough to be viable. Instead, we've all been delighted by the discussions on this forum where people have shared their ideas and excitement for the possibilities of what's yet to come. I would love to capitalize on the features that people have invested their time and thought into throughout this process, and use the passion demonstrated here to amplify these requests internally when we do plan additional content down the road.
We'll see how it goes but I can imagine there will be strife from either the people who wished for laundry or the people who picked eco living for what it's theme suggested.
Of course we may have seen this divide anyways considering people have a tendency to pick a side in such matters and start identifying with their cause i.e the #teamLaundry thing is totally a form branding and creating a sense of unity and team making it so, naturally because of our brains wiring it becomes a much more sensitive issue and becomes a part of ones identity being part of "team laundry". Not that that is bad or wrong it and everyone is affected to different extents, more of any vote could have become like this and it is human nature to become quite committed to these kinds of things (leading to conflict and disappointment one end or the other)
The voting for the THEME gave the impression that laundry would be a definite part of Eco Living if Eco Living were to win. Technically all the post said was that it MIGHT be a possibility, but obviously, a lot of people read it as definite, and then stated clearly that they voted for Eco Living just because they want laundry.
So I agree with the OP (though for less elaborate reasons), that Maxis screwed this up. They should have made it extremely clear that the first vote was for THEME ONLY, and GAMEPLAY would be decided later; that is, ALL GAMEPLAY, and none of the "suggested" ones were guaranteed.
I think a lot of people, myself included, have just assumed that Maxis knew from the time Eco Living won, or even from the time they suggested laundry in the description of it in the first vote, that laundry will be a given if Eco Living is the pack. I was even surprised that washers and dryers weren't included in the vote on objects.
Another thing: I was hoping that IF we get laundry it will be different (BETTER) than it was in Sims 3. Like, buy a washing machine and you can do laundry regardless of hampers, and no clothes piles unless the Sim is a slob or something. But from the description in the voting, it sounds like it will probably be the same as before.
Making it a vote did give people hope for something else/more than just laundry, if laundry win a lot of people will be happy, but a lot will be upset too, cause a lot of people voted eco-living cause they wanted eco-friendly stuff, while laundry isn't eco-friendly, but if laundry miraculously lose (which I highly doubt), a lot of people will be upset saying it's the only reason they voted for that theme.
So either way, no matter what win a lot of people will be upset, I would have prefer if they just made a laundry SP without any voting, without presenting us sweet ideas that sounds awesome, but might never see. Ideas that took time that could have been used on something else.
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The question is which idea gets the most votes. The devil you know vs. the one you don't, while certainly relevant in how voters may vote, isn't a disqualifying reason for removing something from a vote. Either your idea gets enough votes or it doesn't, you don't disqualify the most popular candidate because yours is losing. The whole argument sounds an awful lot like, "I'm not going to get the most votes, so I'm going to suggest it's unfair, but the reason it's unfair is the other team is winning." Being more popular is basically the dependent variable in a vote - IE it's circular to disqualify a side because it's more popular in a popularity contest, and the same logic supplied here can be applied ad infitum to create an "election" that can only supply your desired results.
Personally I'd rather have off the grid, but if laundry wins because more people know it, then it wins. That's just how votes work.
Three things in response:
1) Just wanna say I'm not trying to say the illusion of choice was intended, but rather it just is what it is. It's not my intent to name some conspiracy or something, just to highlight that...In the same fashion that the voting choices are in a randomized order because the exact order of voting options may sometimes have influence over what people choose, laundry's fame and established fanbase sways things too. Once laundry was included, the deck was stacked and the outcome was more or less predictable, even if there was zero intention to do so.
2) Yes, some goals of the project are intact. I'm not saying this ruins everything, I'm merely saying better feedback and more accurate data on the popularity of these new ideas probably could've been achieved with some tweaking to the polling candidates.
And finally:
3) In response to the above snippet, my very point is that laundry was already highly requested, and that if it were to lose, I think the feedback asking for laundry would spike because we just "had it" and then lost it. Heck, I think simply not being on the poll would've caused a spike in demand because if my memory serves me correct, laundry had a decent-sized thread requesting it shortly before the announcement of this project, and I imagine fan requests for it would spike if it wasn't on the poll because those very same people would fear their request wasn't heard. I think it would spike enough that we have a "guarentee" we'd get laundry in the future because at the end of the day, the goal of the Sims team is to provide content we want and this clearly has support. Laundry already had fans asking for it before it was ever included on this list, it now has even more fans who have been invested in the idea they'd get laundry for months now thanks to this project, and if it loses, I expect those fans to be louder until laundry is included, precisely because they're worried there's no guarentee so they really need to push for it. Laundry is in a sweet spot of sorts where it has a huge advantage in the polls, and even if it loses, is likely to return because it's been feeding off this unintentioned hype train. The same cannot be said for any of the other stuff, because we don't know how quickly the demand for Off-the-Grid or Dangerous Stuff will diminish or return.
You checked the reddit thread discussing this? Check out this guy. His mentality is a testament to the fact that plenty of people think we're getting laundry regardless, and infact vote against it not because they don't want it, but because they're placing bets we can get both laundry and something else here. This alone skews data, and that's part of my point. Even if you feel that guy is wrong in his assumptions...? His assumptions dictate how he votes, and that skews your data. That's a problem best avoided when we can.
I sort of hold the position that "if laundry is going to be included regardless due to overwhelming fan requests, what was the purpose of ever including it on the poll against the other stuff?" If laundry doesn't get included in a future pack regardless, then this poll has unintentionally raised the demand and the interest for laundry when it made people think for months that laundry was a sure-win. There would be fan backlash and disappointment that could've easily been avoided by simply working on a laundry SP without the need for a poll. I do not think the same applies to new concepts such as Off the Grid and Dangerous Stuff simply because we don't know what exactly they'd look like when put into our game. It's easy to let go of something and move on when we never had it to begin with; for all we know those two sound great on paper but are terrible in practice, so we can let go and move on. And if they did get included at a later date, then I'd assume they got included because of the overwhelming positive feedback they received: if the feedback from a preview concept description alone was enough alone to generate demand for that concept, then it probably deserves to be a pack, right? No one would cry "foul, why include them on the poll" about those being made later because of course they needed to be included; feedback was low or nonexistent before the poll gave them exposure, so the poll played a vital role.
But laundry...? 100%, people are picturing Sims 3 laundry, and the people who want it are gonna continue to want it after this poll ends. I don't think the same rules that apply to the others apply to it. Even Nectar Making, which is also an old returning feature, doesn't suffer from half of the problems Laundry does just because it's a more sudden curveball we weren't expecting and haven't been invested in for months, but I'd easily be willing to bet money that the results of this poll will either have Laundry at #1 and Nectar Making at #2 or vice versa. It's got a decent advantage too in the same fashion that laundry does: If the poll were to instead suggest we got a "Jam making" skill....? This is a huge difference in my mind. Jam Making means people hear "skill" and get somewhat excited for gameplay, but we question how big or meaningful the skill will be. We probably consider it on par with the bowling skill, since that makes sense for a stuff pack. Nectar Making...? This arouses memories of World Adventures and we're suddenly picturing a highly in-depth 10 level nectar making skill we got before, and suddenly our desire to pick it is much higher. Such a skill has never been included with a stuff pack, so our guts tells me not to expect something like that, yet the simple title of "Nectar Making" raises our hopes and raises the desire for that. Bias towards pre-existing game concepts is absolutely a thing.
So we're stuck. Either laundry wins and it feels like the other new ideas unfairly "died" simply because they had the misfortune of competing with an existing one and NOT because they deserved to die out, or laundry loses and there's a backlash from people who were deadset on laundry and feel it should be included anyways. And if it's included due to this backlash, again I must ask: what was the purpose of including it when it had it's "guarenteed" spot anyways?
It's a debate about just how much the deck was stacked, more or less, and of course various different people like yourself and myself will debate the weight that laundry carries with it. If it wins though or if Nectar Making is the only one that comes close to beating it...? Well, I predicted laundry would win the day this project began, and here I am predicting outcomes on the day of the gameplay vote, too. If I turn out to be right, at the very least I think it's time to question if that was all mere coincidence or if I'm onto something with my argument.