yeah I'm hotly anticipating the game play live stream because I agree that concentrating solely on Cats and Dogs at the expense of horses and small animals should mean we're spoilt for choice for items relating to dogs and cats.
From what I've seen in the influencer's game play reviews it's all pretty basic gameplay: fetch, cuddle, praise, reprimand, kiss, hug, feed, gave a bath, etc.
Dogs can drink out of the toilet and roll in dirt.
Dogs can swim in pools.
Cats jump on stuff.
The end.
I think the issue isn't with what is the same as previous games, but what is missing compared to previous games. The vet business is cool, but it's such a similar feature as dine out and retail that it's not entirely convincing as the only major gameplay feature outside of the pets themselves. I personally thinks we should have gotten at least one or two new careers, pet competitions to go with the training equipment and maybe even pet careers. Careers doesn't have to include a single animation since they're off lot. It would have made the training of pets more interesting if there was an end goal besides 'complete the course' which is frankly lame and not enough motivation.
Allons-y!
---> Afterlife Game Pack Idea - improved ghosts, cemeteries and funerals, psychics, new skills, new career and more! <---
I think the issue isn't with what is the same as previous games, but what is missing compared to previous games. The vet business is cool, but it's such a similar feature as dine out and retail that it's not entirely convincing as the only major gameplay feature outside of the pets themselves. I personally thinks we should have gotten at least one or two new careers, pet competitions to go with the training equipment and maybe even pet careers. Careers doesn't have to include a single animation since they're off lot. It would have made the training of pets more interesting if there was an end goal besides 'complete the course' which is frankly lame and not enough motivation.
I agree. I will just quote myself from a different thread.
Well I'm not sure how much footage they allowed them to show but none of them showed much as far as I can see. Maybe there's just not much to show.
I really love the build/buy style and the world is pretty (but small), but I don't know, I feel like there is not enough interactions with pets and the gameplay seems kind of meh.
no i mean can ya tell me what ya woud like ta be shown. .. ya say not much but what else woud ya like ta see in there? ?
For all I can see. The interactions are pretty basic. Play catch, hug, kiss, train, walk. Dogs sitting and lying on sofas, cats jumping on surfaces. The end.
I can't really tell you what I would like to have seen but I can tell you that what I saw gameplay wise was bland and basic.
Maybe as someone suggested with a closer relationship to your pet and more skill, there are more things to do with them. So far I'm not impressed.
so ya dont like whats seen [examples a cats an dogs actin like cats an dogs shoud act in a game] but cant say what shoud be seen. .. uhh ok. people confuse me ahahahh
I mean we're not the people behind TS4. The people responsible for TS4 had more than a simple hour to consider things we haven't seen before and what kind of interaction they could add. I bet if we all here brainstormed for a week we could come up with a pretty long list of possibilities.
but thats what im askin an so far no body can give me an answer an so far evry answer given is stuff thats actually in this ep. .. video proven. ahahahh its confusin that people are "disappointed" in sumthin even they cant say what they want for dogs n cats. i wanta see what cool ideas people wanted an yet no body wants anythin it seems yet there disappointed whats there. makes absolute no sence not even a litle.
I would like to have competitions. We have obstacle courses, but obstacle courses are kind of pointless if there are no competitions.
I would like to have more animals. I would like bunnies. Bunnies are pure love.
I would like more careers: an active dog trainer career, a part time dog walker job for teens.
I wish sims in the police career could bring their dog to work. The dog than could help them sniff out the suspect. (I would like more attention to little details like that.)
I wish vets could work from home.
I wish there was an option to purchase a clinic and be the boss or to only work in a clinic. That way my not so well off sims could also enjo being a veterinarian.
Intel i7-6700HQ; nvidia gtx970m 3 gb; 1tb HHD and 256gb SSD; my drivers are always up to date.
The new town and all the new items for normal sims look fantastic but... uhm...
why are there so few toys and items for the main feature of this EP? This pack is about Cats and Dogs!!
Cats and Dogs SP when...
Well, there are some toys in the toy box, and I hoped there'd be many of them, but in AndrewArcade's video I saw there are only like 3 and they only differ in shape, I guess dogs will only be able to chew on them.
I'd love to have a frisbee for example. Do we know if we can play fetch with our dogs? I'm already very happy about the jogging thing, that's new, but I really don't understand why they always choose the safe over the creative The idea of dogs trying to steal food from the fridge is amazing and if they'd program it as a very rare even that only happens with certain dogs it'd be even funnier. Heck, I've recently watched some TV thing about a cat who learned to steal frozen fish from the refrigirator when the owners weren't home. Just one episode of My Cat From Hell could give them so many fun ideas!
Well, there are some toys in the toy box, and I hoped there'd be many of them, but in AndrewArcade's video I saw there are only like 3 and they only differ in shape, I guess dogs will only be able to chew on them.
I'd love to have a frisbee for example. Do we know if we can play fetch with our dogs? I'm already very happy about the jogging thing, that's new, but I really don't understand why they always choose the safe over the creative The idea of dogs trying to steal food from the fridge is amazing and if they'd program it as a very rare even that only happens with certain dogs it'd be even funnier. Heck, I've recently watched some TV thing about a cat who learned to steal frozen fish from the refrigirator when the owners weren't home. Just one episode of My Cat From plum could give them so many fun ideas!
Yes, one of the videos showed a sim throwing the ball and the dog would run get it and bring it back.
Well, there are some toys in the toy box, and I hoped there'd be many of them, but in AndrewArcade's video I saw there are only like 3 and they only differ in shape, I guess dogs will only be able to chew on them.
I'd love to have a frisbee for example. Do we know if we can play fetch with our dogs? I'm already very happy about the jogging thing, that's new, but I really don't understand why they always choose the safe over the creative The idea of dogs trying to steal food from the fridge is amazing and if they'd program it as a very rare even that only happens with certain dogs it'd be even funnier. Heck, I've recently watched some TV thing about a cat who learned to steal frozen fish from the refrigirator when the owners weren't home. Just one episode of My Cat From plum could give them so many fun ideas!
Yes, one of the videos showed a sim throwing the ball and the dog would run get it and bring it back.
Oh, that's great. I still have some catching up to do but work is veery slow today so I might finally watch and read everything
There are some very creative ways of playing with cats. Hope there's more in store for us than what we've been shown so far.
I just looked properly and holy moley there almost nothing added for pets o.O
I thought the whole point of making it cats and dogs was to focus on the cats and dogs and we get almost nothing for them to even use. Just the two rug/bed things for their beds...just what? That's so incredibly lazy of them. Why do we need a million decals? Why didn't they add in more things for pets? This is (realistically) the only pack where cats and dogs will get any items for them and we get next to nothing. It just really screams laziness to me. You can't even blame this on EA, this is the devs doing. They chose to prioritize those useless decor items over things for cats and dogs.
I still can't get over those "pet beds", they are so bad.
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Then don't get it.
You missed the sentence where he said he wanted it. It's everyone's prerogative to still buy the packs even when they're crappy. Right now I'm neither playing or buying packs, but I might at a later point for whatever reason. But that doesn't mean I'll stop criticizing and expecting better from EA. I don't like when people just say 'don't like it don't buy it' in response to criticism, as if the fact that I'm not buying means I should or will shut up.
Allons-y!
---> Afterlife Game Pack Idea - improved ghosts, cemeteries and funerals, psychics, new skills, new career and more! <---
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Then don't get it.
You are aware I said I wanted to buy it right? That doesn't mean I have to lie and sing daisies and roses about the pack. I am allowed to voice my concerns about this pack just as you're allowed to sing your praises about this pack.
I don't get the point of these condescending posts, who are you trying to impress by saying that? Everyone knows full well they don't have to buy this pack.
Yes, I completely agree. I didn't watch all the new videos from the Simmers, so I may be wrong, but I remember seeing only 2 dog beds and 3 cat litters, am I right? And 1 dog ball and some cat toys, I can't remember the exact number. Overall, though, they don't seem enough. I guess the toy box will include some toys, but they'll most probably work in the same way (the animations and so on). I agree that there are too many decals and I'm not a Simmer who uses far too many decorations on the walls and furniture. The new world is stunning, though, I immediately fell head over heels in love with it!
So looking at some videos, we have at least 3 toy boxes with pet toys in them.
About 8 parts to the agility course
We get about 7 or so objects our cats can scratch/climb/sleep in.
And looks like about 3 pet bowls or so.
This simmer really shows a good portion of the stuff. we get over 250+ new objects!
Skip to around 23m in and u will see the buy/build stuff, the cat condos are so nice. Oh also don't forget the pet doors!!
The items on the video are nice and I'll most likely use some of them, but most of them seem to be normal furniture for sims or pure decoration, not items for the pets. So, cats will have many different sized cat condos, but dogs won't have much items aside from agility course (which doesn't go inside the house, at least not normally) and the items that both animals can use like food bowls. I hope small dogs could also use cat items for sleeping and climbing, but I doubt that is possible in the game. I wish that out of those over 250+ new objects more of them would have been for the pets, sims already have chairs, coffee tables and sofas, pets only have whatever items they get in this EP.
I'm really starting to hope that there would be pets stuff pack for those who bought Cats and Dogs. I would buy it.
Of course I also feel that I shouldn't have to buy an extra stuff pack for items like doghouses and more pet toys after I already have bought the actual expansion pack, but I still would buy it.
I'm really starting to hope that there would be pets stuff pack for those who bought Cats and Dogs. I would buy it.
Of course I also feel that I shouldn't have to buy an extra stuff pack for items like doghouses and more pet toys after I already have bought the actual expansion pack, but I still would buy it.
Reading this makes me really sad. You should rather download some CC because paying them for a Pets SP is ridiculous. (Though people said that a SP seems unlikely because no SP was based on a EP/GP so far, so hopefully it won't come to this.)
I've just remembered The Sims Pet Stories - for those who don't know, the Stories series were stand-alone games based on The Sims 2 that had cute scripted stories and were designed to work well on laptops. We had Life Stories, Pet Stories and my favorite, Castaway Stories.
So anyway, Pet Stories had the training course that dogs can use, but unlike in TS4 Cats & Dogs, they could compete and make money from it, it was pretty awesome. I wish it worked similarly in this EP, since it seems that except the vets (which is a feature for the sims themselves) we didn't get any major feature for the pets that we didn't have before...
The point is we shouldn't need a pets stuff pack! A sufficient amount of content should be included in the EP. Do you not realise that if they put out a SP they would be milking you and taking you for a mug, by getting you to pay even more for something that should've all been in one pack, like it used to be? And if we all started buying it, then I'm sure they'd realise they could keep dividing EP content into additional packs, as they've already done with City Living and the Bolwing and Vintage SPs, and get away with it because we'll keep buying it and they'll make even more profit.
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Then don't get it.
You are aware I said I wanted to buy it right? That doesn't mean I have to lie and sing daisies and roses about the pack. I am allowed to voice my concerns about this pack just as you're allowed to sing your praises about this pack.
I don't get the point of these condescending posts, who are you trying to impress by saying that? Everyone knows full well they don't have to buy this pack.
I know right? I wanna know why a negative person invading a happy thread is so obviously unacceptable and awful but all of them can just come to any thread and harass others trying to be "funny" and witty and no one says a darn thing? Are we hurting somebody with expressing our concerns or what? I'm tired of this plum
It seems unlikely that they'd release a stuff pack that only a limited amount of people could get. Looking back at this series' history they don't really do that and it makes sense - they always want maximum profit. Pets is always one of the best selling EPs though so maybe this time around they'd consider it? Wouldn't be the best thing but whatever. The ones who have the extra $10 to spare would be happy at least.
I'm really starting to hope that there would be pets stuff pack for those who bought Cats and Dogs. I would buy it.
Of course I also feel that I shouldn't have to buy an extra stuff pack for items like doghouses and more pet toys after I already have bought the actual expansion pack, but I still would buy it.
Reading this makes me really sad. You should rather download some CC because paying them for a Pets SP is ridiculous. (Though people said that a SP seems unlikely because no SP was based on a EP/GP so far, so hopefully it won't come to this.)
there's nothing wrong with them wanting money for there work times have changed if we want the same amount of stuff we had in eps before the price has to go up
I just looked properly and holy moley there almost nothing added for pets o.O
I thought the whole point of making it cats and dogs was to focus on the cats and dogs and we get almost nothing for them to even use. Just the two rug/bed things for their beds...just what? That's so incredibly lazy of them. Why do we need a million decals? Why didn't they add in more things for pets? This is (realistically) the only pack where cats and dogs will get any items for them and we get next to nothing. It just really screams laziness to me. You can't even blame this on EA, this is the devs doing. They chose to prioritize those useless decor items over things for cats and dogs.
I still can't get over those "pet beds", they are so bad.
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Depending on the why of it, it could be EA's fault. I'm not suggesting it is, just saying there's a multitude of motivations and reasonings here. As a couple examples of possible (<---keyword) problems that explain the missing features/content:
A.) The team is knowingly conscious of how little they produced in terms of objects and knows they're producing less, but they're happy producing less and want it to remain this way. As such, they went through and mass-produced the easiest object they could make to pad the catalog: wall decals. Wall decals are not even three dimensional, so all they have to do is create a flat image. It doesn't even really need a 3D model. This was perhaps knowingly done to pad the catalog and make it look bigger than it is. Easy work for (hopefully) similar sales and it would be called a job well done.
B.) The project is underfunded, the staff does not have enough money to produce the content we expect. This means they struggled to produce the base expectations for Pets themselves, and then struggled even harder creating the fluff with the little funding they had left over. This is why we get the bare minimum, sometimes see the bare minimum lacking (no doghouses) and otherwise see no content for pets, whether it's activities or objects.
C.) Understaffed. This is virtually identical to the above, just worded and manifested in a different way. Funding may not be the issue directly, but rather indirectly. If the management (whether that be EA or Maxis) refuses to hire more staff to aid with the project, then that's less people working on producing features. Every project has a time cut-off, and currently the Sims team seems quite content to aim for November/December and meet the Christmas rush each year. If they only have X amount of workers though and only one year to produce Y amount of content, then obviously the content produced is limited depending on the staff available.
D.) Mismanaged. Assume the staff has too many managers all competing with each other for that sweet, sweet promotion. Would you try to get promoted by producing barebones content that everyone has come to expect, or would you try to produce content that makes teenage girls say "LOL! " on twitter to try and please higher-ups? Think we can agree you'd go for the latter. Suddenly we have multiple managers all assigning their underlings to reference a roomba cat meme, to make an LGBT couple with another meme reference, to make a laser-guided cat litterbox, to make a hotdog costume for a cat, etc etc.....and what's that...? No one bothered to do content control and make sure the doghouse was being made? No one wanted to be stuck with creating the variations of pet toys and pet beds? No one wanted to make generic animation work that was important but that would struggle to stand out...? Now we lack doghouses, detailed pet beds and even some basic animations/interactions? Well crud....let's hope my nuclear-powered cat nip that makes your cat glow in the dark gets me some sweet thumbs up from teen girls on my instagram so my bosses will promote me, at least!!
Plenty of possibilities and recipes for disaster. Some involve EA, some don't. Just saying that we sadly don't know the problem children in this mess. I'm super super curious what the problem is, but I'm afraid they'd never ever tell us regardless of the problem, because companies don't like admitting they've made mistakes and have problems. To do that is to passively suggest that perhaps other competiting companies who've never admitted to mistakes might be doing better. Bad business, so unless some disgruntled fired employee spills the beans as they sometimes do, (and even then, are they trustworthy...?) we can expect this mystery to remain unsolved.
Bottom line should just be that there's a problem, and since we don't know why or who is responsible, then everyone from the immediate Sims team, (At least the EP team and those who worked on it) all the managers on it, Maxis managers and EA managers should all take some form of responsibility. That's one of the "perks" of being a manager: you always share responsibility, both for victories and for failures.
Comments
That realy is no different than sims 3 ?
I agree. I will just quote myself from a different thread.
why are there so few toys and items for the main feature of this EP? This pack is about Cats and Dogs!!
Cats and Dogs SP when...
I'd love to have a frisbee for example. Do we know if we can play fetch with our dogs? I'm already very happy about the jogging thing, that's new, but I really don't understand why they always choose the safe over the creative
Yes, one of the videos showed a sim throwing the ball and the dog would run get it and bring it back.
Oh, that's great. I still have some catching up to do but work is veery slow today so I might finally watch and read everything
There are some very creative ways of playing with cats. Hope there's more in store for us than what we've been shown so far.
I thought the whole point of making it cats and dogs was to focus on the cats and dogs and we get almost nothing for them to even use. Just the two rug/bed things for their beds...just what? That's so incredibly lazy of them. Why do we need a million decals? Why didn't they add in more things for pets? This is (realistically) the only pack where cats and dogs will get any items for them and we get next to nothing. It just really screams laziness to me. You can't even blame this on EA, this is the devs doing. They chose to prioritize those useless decor items over things for cats and dogs.
I still can't get over those "pet beds", they are so bad.
Urgh the bad thing is that I don't even think this pack looks too bad overall and I do want it, I just don't want to pay full price for something as empty as this (though again no way near as empty as city living by the looks)
I just wish the devs had different priorities and focused on actual gameplay for the cats and dogs instead of the owenrs of the cats and dogs.
Then don't get it.
You are aware I said I wanted to buy it right? That doesn't mean I have to lie and sing daisies and roses about the pack. I am allowed to voice my concerns about this pack just as you're allowed to sing your praises about this pack.
I don't get the point of these condescending posts, who are you trying to impress by saying that? Everyone knows full well they don't have to buy this pack.
I guess a Pets Stuff SP is on its way!
About 8 parts to the agility course
We get about 7 or so objects our cats can scratch/climb/sleep in.
And looks like about 3 pet bowls or so.
This simmer really shows a good portion of the stuff.
Skip to around 23m in and u will see the buy/build stuff, the cat condos are so nice. Oh also don't forget the pet doors!!
The items on the video are nice and I'll most likely use some of them, but most of them seem to be normal furniture for sims or pure decoration, not items for the pets. So, cats will have many different sized cat condos, but dogs won't have much items aside from agility course (which doesn't go inside the house, at least not normally) and the items that both animals can use like food bowls. I hope small dogs could also use cat items for sleeping and climbing, but I doubt that is possible in the game. I wish that out of those over 250+ new objects more of them would have been for the pets, sims already have chairs, coffee tables and sofas, pets only have whatever items they get in this EP.
Of course I also feel that I shouldn't have to buy an extra stuff pack for items like doghouses and more pet toys after I already have bought the actual expansion pack, but I still would buy it.
So anyway, Pet Stories had the training course that dogs can use, but unlike in TS4 Cats & Dogs, they could compete and make money from it, it was pretty awesome. I wish it worked similarly in this EP, since it seems that except the vets (which is a feature for the sims themselves) we didn't get any major feature for the pets that we didn't have before...
I know right? I wanna know why a negative person invading a happy thread is so obviously unacceptable and awful but all of them can just come to any thread and harass others trying to be "funny" and witty and no one says a darn thing? Are we hurting somebody with expressing our concerns or what? I'm tired of this plum
It seems unlikely that they'd release a stuff pack that only a limited amount of people could get. Looking back at this series' history they don't really do that and it makes sense - they always want maximum profit. Pets is always one of the best selling EPs though so maybe this time around they'd consider it? Wouldn't be the best thing but whatever. The ones who have the extra $10 to spare would be happy at least.
complete forum tutorial
Thank you @MDianaSanders for halloween-fying Golluma
there's nothing wrong with them wanting money for there work times have changed if we want the same amount of stuff we had in eps before the price has to go up
a ball shooter for long rang fetch
Depending on the why of it, it could be EA's fault. I'm not suggesting it is, just saying there's a multitude of motivations and reasonings here. As a couple examples of possible (<---keyword) problems that explain the missing features/content:
A.) The team is knowingly conscious of how little they produced in terms of objects and knows they're producing less, but they're happy producing less and want it to remain this way. As such, they went through and mass-produced the easiest object they could make to pad the catalog: wall decals. Wall decals are not even three dimensional, so all they have to do is create a flat image. It doesn't even really need a 3D model. This was perhaps knowingly done to pad the catalog and make it look bigger than it is. Easy work for (hopefully) similar sales and it would be called a job well done.
B.) The project is underfunded, the staff does not have enough money to produce the content we expect. This means they struggled to produce the base expectations for Pets themselves, and then struggled even harder creating the fluff with the little funding they had left over. This is why we get the bare minimum, sometimes see the bare minimum lacking (no doghouses) and otherwise see no content for pets, whether it's activities or objects.
C.) Understaffed. This is virtually identical to the above, just worded and manifested in a different way. Funding may not be the issue directly, but rather indirectly. If the management (whether that be EA or Maxis) refuses to hire more staff to aid with the project, then that's less people working on producing features. Every project has a time cut-off, and currently the Sims team seems quite content to aim for November/December and meet the Christmas rush each year. If they only have X amount of workers though and only one year to produce Y amount of content, then obviously the content produced is limited depending on the staff available.
D.) Mismanaged. Assume the staff has too many managers all competing with each other for that sweet, sweet promotion. Would you try to get promoted by producing barebones content that everyone has come to expect, or would you try to produce content that makes teenage girls say "LOL!
Plenty of possibilities and recipes for disaster. Some involve EA, some don't. Just saying that we sadly don't know the problem children in this mess. I'm super super curious what the problem is, but I'm afraid they'd never ever tell us regardless of the problem, because companies don't like admitting they've made mistakes and have problems. To do that is to passively suggest that perhaps other competiting companies who've never admitted to mistakes might be doing better. Bad business, so unless some disgruntled fired employee spills the beans as they sometimes do, (and even then, are they trustworthy...?) we can expect this mystery to remain unsolved.
Bottom line should just be that there's a problem, and since we don't know why or who is responsible, then everyone from the immediate Sims team, (At least the EP team and those who worked on it) all the managers on it, Maxis managers and EA managers should all take some form of responsibility. That's one of the "perks" of being a manager: you always share responsibility, both for victories and for failures.