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Only ONE MORE YEAR for Seasons o boy aren't we all having fun?!!?
DeservedCriticism
Posts: 2,251 Member
As time goes on, this wait becomes more and more ridiculous and I find myself playing the game less and less. Would not be surprised if they begin to see sales drop off simply because others are sick of waiting too. I can only speculate, but I get the vibe the lack of EPs is really starting to hurt.
And yes, I cannot confirm Seasons is in a year, only speculate. That's not good lol. If anything that just makes the situation worse.
At this point I just wanna know who's responsible for the decision to cut EP production in half. I cannot fathom any response for this decision being viable beyond "we make more money." (or a "we had to" from a team manager forced to manage a lackluster budget from another guy who chose to cut production costs down)
"Who are you, that do not know your history?"
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It took 3 years, and the thing to realize is Seasons is actually an outlier here. Yeah, we're getting it and pets one year late (assuming of course that Seasons is next; it's very plausible it isn't)...but we have nothing else to show for it.
Here's the list of Expansions we got with the last game:
World Adventures
Ambitions
Late Night
Generations
Pets*
Showtime
Supernatural*
Seasons
University Life
Island Paradise
Into the Future
Bolded = We have a Sims 4 counterpart
Italics = We sort of have a Sims 4 counterpart, often a diet version/GP version
Asterisk* = Special condition; Pets isn't here yet but more or less confirmed, Supernatural is debatably not a diet version since vamps are great and an additional Witches GP seems likely
Things to take away from this?
We have no room for new EP concepts. We've had one. Hell, you could debate this and argue Get Together is a rehashed party theme.
We have no room for popular ideas like University or a fame-based expansion.
Other concepts like vacation destinations may only come in GP form, or hell we may already have all we're getting via Outdoor Retreat.
Even if Sims 4 development continued indefinitely and they confirmed they have plans to develop for the game until 2021 or something, it'll be 2019 before we see University, a new EP concept or anything else. That's crazy!
Consumers tend to stop paying attention to a product the longer it's on a market. Typically if you check the sales of a product and it's DLC, the final DLC don't sell as well as the beginning DLC. I don't know about you, but I'm starting to feel this effect with Sims 4. I'm not sure if I'll be returning to it simply because my desire to play is zero, and that's largely because there's no new content, it still lacks base game content from predecessors after 3 years, and even if Pets for example were amazing...? Well, it'll be another year before they give us something that isn't a stuff pack or a mini-EP. GPs can be good content for their pricetag, but they also simply aren't enough content to keep the game entertaining.
Now more than ever, I'm really thinking it was an absolutely suicidal idea to slow EP production to the rate they have now. We've reluctantly tolerated it the first 3 years, but I dunno about you, but it's REALLY starting to sink in just how hopeless Sims 4 is looking right now. If it lasts as long as a standard Sims game....? It's only got another year or two. Even IF it lasts longer....? Dude, that's 2020+. The next presidential election will happen around the time this game finally achieves as many expansion packs as Sims 1. I could have a child in that amount of time. I could get married. I could complete a new degree at university. It's an obscenely long amount of time that they expect us to wait for new content.
I don't think I have anything left in me except frustration. THREE YEARS we've been lamenting this and THREE YEARS EA/Maxis had to figure out this is a terrible idea to model the packs this way. They didn't. Now we're really feeling it and I daresay the future looks more hopeless than it ever has, and that's despite 2017 probably being their best year of production. It just seems like too little too late, and it's mind-numbing to think that someone in EA/Maxis actually couldn't predict this happening....or in traditional EA fashion, didn't care so long as they could milk the cash cow first.
I think Sims 4 will last til 2020 which will be the 20th anniversary of the Sims series and I believe the perfect time to release a potential new Sims game. But even so, that's only 2-3 more EPs total. That is absolutely dismal.
We have basically known about Pets for so long now that it feels even more eternal having to wait for the next expansion after that.
Although I think the Game Packs have been extremely well done and I do enjoy them, I'm really feeling the lack of full Expansion Packs. There will be NO new ideas in EPs if they can only make 2-3 more after Pets. So we get Seasons and University for example, there's no room to have anything innovative. GPs might introduce some different concepts, but they will ultimately be more limited due to the smaller GP budget.
It's frustrating. The only thing I've done in this game recently is build houses. I still find that enjoyable. But I do not have any desire to actually touch the rest of the game. 2 minutes in live mode and I am thinking of other things I want to do. So sad.
But anyway, The Sims 4 lost my interest, 1 EP a year isn't enough to keep me entertain or interested, the SP doesn't interest me, I'm no someone playing for the clothing or furniture, so that leave the GP, but then it's not always things I personally enjoy, I'm not a family player so to me Parenthood was boring (not saying it is, and I'm happy they gave the family players something, but not my cup of tea), but for a player like me the last interesting pack was Vampires in January, in the next months it will be only a toddler SP, and then in November or so maybe pets, which again isn't something that interesting for me, unless they made it interesting, but we'll see.
Same for me.
I played a while when toddlers came out, but Sims 4 is just boring for me.
I love having seasons & pets & babies my Sims can take for a walk to the park.
I like the fire stations & burglars & my Sim kids riding bikes around the world.
I like University & cars you can work on, the nectar maker, baking station & so on & so on.
I can play Sims 3 for hours & never be bored.
And if I want a change, I play Sims 2.
> EPs are coming once a year now because there is only 1 EP time. I'm pretty sure in previous games, each EP took the team 1 year to make, but there were 2 EP teams, so EPs came faster. The only thing that has changed is -1 EP Team, +1 GP Team
But why reduce the EP team? TS3 sold 10 million copies, why treat TS4 like an indie game?
I guess they reduced the EP team to make more money. Smaller, cheaper packs are probably more profitable for them, and Game Packs are small and cheap. But I don't know the exact reason why they did. I, though, personally, am glad that they did do this. While I want more EPs, GPs can fit many other themes that EPs couldn't (1 supernatural/gamepack, fame, single vacation destination, etc.). Plus, GPs are cheaper, and come out more often, which means less dry quarters with just stuff packs
Sorry, that sounds rude. I don't mean it that way. My point is actually that I got so sick of EA's practices with delaying such a natural feature as seasons for years. The games are not very playable for me personally without Seasons. When The Sims 4 was released with very little new and exciting, it was my ticket to not care about the game at all and just stick with the games that have and will always seasons.
I'm sorry that you have to wait. EA is ridiculous.
Sorry if I sounded a bit rude, I am just really tired of this constant asking for seasons, because I just don't get what's so special about it. It was one of my least favorite eps for TS3, ya know
To add, I personally enjoy the game much more without weather, but IF a seasons ep or gp comes out and we're NOT able to toggle specific weather effects off in certain worlds, and I would be forced to play in a snowy Oasis Springs, I would even skip seasons completely than this.
I like to build stuff
As for me, I ve bought all EPs, GPS and even SPS so far; but I just don't think I'll be getting the toddler Sp. Why? Simple. Because I'm not investing more money and effort in this game until I am 100% positive it will deliver everything I expect from a sims game. Next EP is pets, which I don't really care about. So this means I'll probably have to wait at least a full year to get any meaningful game changing content like seasons or university. Seems like too long a wait and for all we know Ts5 might be announced in the interim and production for TS4 be discontinued...
Yes, it should have been in the base game. But it wasn't, and that's why people are so angry and so tired of waiting for it.
And LOL at you saying that they should focus on new features instead and then not only not offering any suggestions but turning around and telling the people who want Seasons that they are the ones who should do the work for you in figuring out new features. And I thought my post was rude.
EA should not be focused on "new features". They should be focused on returning base-game level features like this that they have kept from fans for way too long already. Don't blame the fans for wanting these features back. Point the finger at EA where it belongs. If you want a The Sims game with "new ideas" for Expansion Packs, increase the demand for EA to add features like weather and seasons to the base-game.
Seasons has not been the same in every iteration, actually. TS3 expanded upon the idea by adding holidays, which is something that a lot of people who weren't even interested in Seasons by itself were excited for.
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.
They haven't said this actually.
I think I expressed myself badly with this, with "you" I didn't actually mean the others that want seasons, but just in general that I couldn't bring any suggestions at this moment and that "one" need to brainstorm for this. I am not a native speaker, so this was just a missunderstanding of what I actually meant.
I actually think, when it's time for TS5, that they should just include Pets and Seasons in the base game, seasons with toggle so that everyone can be happy. My point is that they are wasting development time on things that are so basic that they shouldn't be just in an expansion pack years later. It's boring and dull for the people who want something new and exciting. Sure, TS3 expanded on old features, but the holidays in seasons weren't that big of an improvement. With "expanding" I mean eps like World Adventures, which expanded on the vacation theme, the same with Island Paradise, or Supernatural, which added new life states that weren't in TS2. Holidays as an improvement of seasons is nothing against that and almost unnoticable.
Oh, and I didn't blame anyone in my post for wanting seasons, I just pointed out my opinion, which is that I could live without seasons, even when it's incredibly hard for you to understand
I like to build stuff
After The Sims 2 I found the wait for those elements in The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 to be somewhat frustrating. And so I have decided that should there be The Sims 5, and should I be so interested in it, I will wait several years before purchasing it. No more of this treading water while I wait for the content that interests me to trickle out.