The latest update for The Sims 4 is now live. Click here to read the latest notes.
Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Is this really the direction we are going?
Schantal
Posts: 3,082 Member
****ALL opinions welcome, just be nice please so the thread isn't closed. Which do you guys like more? The more reslitic way, cartoony, or somewhere inbetween? I think I like inbetween.
ETA: One of my fav Will Wright quotes, which you can find in the interview linked below is this "I'm a games designer, I don't want to be a storyteller. I want to be a story-enabler. I think that the stories that the players create or tell are so much more interesting. I like the idea of games as a form of creative expression from the player's point of view. So the player feels very excited in investing themselves into creativity."
I love this because he wanted THE PLAYER to have control to tell stories, not take control away. I feel like Sims 4 is more about how the PRODUCERS think we should play......
So, I have played The Sims since the very first game roughly 18 years ago. It's always been one of the most amazing games I have ever played. The reason the game was so successful was because Will Wright, the creator, was a freaking visionary. So, recently I was thinking about how the community is divided into the people who want a more realistic game (still funny and silly, but realistic) the way the original creator intended it and the cartoony game we have come to know today.
It reminds me of so much what happened back in 2009 when Will Wright left his company. Many people don't know this, but Will Wright actually left because he did not like the direction EA was taking his games, more importantly Spore (as well as The Sims). During the creation of Spore "he became massively disillusioned with the gaming industry after what happened with the 'Two Teams' during the development of Spore - basically he came in one day and his science based game's character designs were appended with googly eyes and sneakers. The development team split into two camps, the 'science' camp who wanted to stay true to the original design Will famously presented as a tech demo here, and the 'cute' camp which shifted the gameplay into the casual disappointing kids game we eventually got. He had sold Maxis semi-recently, giving up what would have previously been complete control. The new owners (EA) ultimately backed the casual camp and the rest is history. Spore was to be his magnum opus that the other simulation games were leading up to, but since EA apparently didn't trust him to design games, Spore flopped and he quit the company he built from nothing in his garage." (The part in quotes was written by a redditor as it was too long to type lol)
Spoiler alert, Will Wright was right and the game flopped due to EA going with someone else's ideas of the game needing to be more cartoony instead of with the original creator (who not only created The Sims, but made one of the best selling PC games in history).
I just find it ironic that the CREATOR of The Sims disagreed so much with what EA was doing (and with good reason, they were wrong and the game ended up being a huge flop) that he literally left his own company because he was so upset at what they were doing to HIS game. I still wonder sometimes where The Sims would be if he was still a part of his company. He created and worked on Sims 1 (and all expansions), Sims 2 (all expansions) before he left. Oh and yes he did have a hand in Sims 2 despite what some random people on the forums have said in the past. You can read about it in an interview for Sims 2 below.
gamesradar.com/the-sims-2-inside-the-mind-of-will-wright/
ETA: One of my fav Will Wright quotes, which you can find in the interview linked below is this "I'm a games designer, I don't want to be a storyteller. I want to be a story-enabler. I think that the stories that the players create or tell are so much more interesting. I like the idea of games as a form of creative expression from the player's point of view. So the player feels very excited in investing themselves into creativity."
I love this because he wanted THE PLAYER to have control to tell stories, not take control away. I feel like Sims 4 is more about how the PRODUCERS think we should play......
So, I have played The Sims since the very first game roughly 18 years ago. It's always been one of the most amazing games I have ever played. The reason the game was so successful was because Will Wright, the creator, was a freaking visionary. So, recently I was thinking about how the community is divided into the people who want a more realistic game (still funny and silly, but realistic) the way the original creator intended it and the cartoony game we have come to know today.
It reminds me of so much what happened back in 2009 when Will Wright left his company. Many people don't know this, but Will Wright actually left because he did not like the direction EA was taking his games, more importantly Spore (as well as The Sims). During the creation of Spore "he became massively disillusioned with the gaming industry after what happened with the 'Two Teams' during the development of Spore - basically he came in one day and his science based game's character designs were appended with googly eyes and sneakers. The development team split into two camps, the 'science' camp who wanted to stay true to the original design Will famously presented as a tech demo here, and the 'cute' camp which shifted the gameplay into the casual disappointing kids game we eventually got. He had sold Maxis semi-recently, giving up what would have previously been complete control. The new owners (EA) ultimately backed the casual camp and the rest is history. Spore was to be his magnum opus that the other simulation games were leading up to, but since EA apparently didn't trust him to design games, Spore flopped and he quit the company he built from nothing in his garage." (The part in quotes was written by a redditor as it was too long to type lol)
Spoiler alert, Will Wright was right and the game flopped due to EA going with someone else's ideas of the game needing to be more cartoony instead of with the original creator (who not only created The Sims, but made one of the best selling PC games in history).
I just find it ironic that the CREATOR of The Sims disagreed so much with what EA was doing (and with good reason, they were wrong and the game ended up being a huge flop) that he literally left his own company because he was so upset at what they were doing to HIS game. I still wonder sometimes where The Sims would be if he was still a part of his company. He created and worked on Sims 1 (and all expansions), Sims 2 (all expansions) before he left. Oh and yes he did have a hand in Sims 2 despite what some random people on the forums have said in the past. You can read about it in an interview for Sims 2 below.
gamesradar.com/the-sims-2-inside-the-mind-of-will-wright/
13
Comments
For my taste the series is too often about watching stuff happen and going aaawwwwsome! about scenery rather than actually playing. I remember the first time I felt like this was when Sims 3: World Adventures released and took weeks to make the destinations viable for vacationing. All the nice builds, but if you were not playing a photographer they were just there, gathering dust, adding little to nothing to the gameplay experience.
My ideal sims game would simulate the environment with climate zones, weather, diseases, natural catastrophes. It could also manage things like government change, prejudice, fashion trends, fluctuating prices and availability of jobs and education, but everything in this category should follow strict guidelines set by the player. Whether the sims do angry poops, talk to their toilets or clasp exitedly at the prospect of woohoo is of no consequence. It can be included or ommited, it doesn't matter to me.
During the original game's lifetime there were plans for a game like I envision, a mix of The Sims and Sim City. It was to be called Sim Ville, I think, but sadly never got finished/published.
I like this one, I agree!!
Yep, thats why I love that quote by Will Wright that I quoted so much. I also LOOOOVED Sims 3, I still do. I remember posting and looking at screenshots and thinking "woah this looks like a photograph". Thats what I mean by real vs cartoony. I rarely get that feeling in sims 4 because it is so cartoony. I used to spend hours scrolling through Simblrs (Sim Tumblr pages) looking at all the beautiful pictures
Considering the Sims, I've played from Sims 1-4, all in varying degrees. I pretty much just built stuff in TS1, TS2 was my jam, and I enjoyed TS3. I preferred the art styles of sims and stuff in TS4 and TS2 than TS3. I spent way too much time playing all of them, but TS3 didn't run well on my old laptop and it crashed a lot.
I haven't had TS4 for very long, but I'm enjoying it so far. Sharing stories that I write and buildings I design is a lot of fun! I do miss the variety of animations and certain objects, and careers from TS2 (especially the Freetime pack! it was the best ever!) and TS3 though.
I like the TS4 art style the best. I feel as if I can create unique sims (plus genetics are pretty great). I don't like the cartoony ways of making a giant microscope, dollhouse, or observatory (wish I could just have a tiny telescope, man!) but overall, I really like it.
I like the fact that The Sims was realistic right up until TS3 but with that added touch of silliness. You could have ordinary family who happen to be aliens or you could have a Sim who visits Egypt and finds a mummy or maybe a Sim who is a police officer who is married to a burger.
There was never any rules and as the game progressed it opened up to more creativity.
If you look at how things are divided now it is clear that by taking some of that edge away from the game is not what everyone wants.
And I miss the more dark humor and playstyle from Sims 1, 2, and 3. Sims 4 is all happy, fluff fluff, that I can't even get deeply involved with dark (as in gambling addictions, divorce, affairs, etc) storylines, because the sims and game engine just don't allow it. Oh, your husband cheated on you and kissed his lover in front of you? Well, I'll give a negative relationship icon, then the wife and husband will instantly start chatting and flirting with one another. I miss in Sims 3 how if you cheated on your spouse and got caught, you have reactions to it. Even a spouses friend in town would catch you and come up and slap the cheater. Sims 4 sims just don't care. They are all smiles and happy and rainbows and kittens. It really limits my imagination.
The lack of reactions from Sims is what also really bothers me in TS4. I had this whole storyline where Arun caught his wife cheating and well, he did the classic slap and all, but a few minutes later he was back to flirting autonomously with Jesminder! That sort of thing would never happen in TS2. I remember how hard it was to rebuild a relationship in TS2 when Sims were enraged with each other... and they'd reject pretty much any interaction you tried... except for the high five. Gotta high five the heck outta those Sims and after like 49395 high fives, they'll maybe talk to you again lol. I'm one of the few who actually really loves TS4, but the lack of reaction really bothers me a lot. I'm a storyteller and I found that TS4 actually offers lots of opportunities to storytellers if you're willing to use your imagination a bit, but it's exactly like @DivieOwl says: this lack of reactions really limits my imagination. Remember what happened when a spouse caught your Sim cheating in TS2? That music, that little screen on the right... all those icons of broken relationships above the Sims. They immediately lost their best friend icon and their love icon, and that was a big deal. And the memories. Gosh, I miss them. Now, a Sim has a moodlet for one or two days and they're all fine, but in TS2 they'd cry about things like this for days and the memory would always be there.
With TS2, when my Sim was out cheating on her partner with another Sim and her partner happened to show up at that lot, you'd immediately get the music, the small screen, the icons above the Sim's head indicating that they just lost all of their relationships and you were there, in shock, like Oh f... In TS4 I once had my Sim take another Sim to the Romance festival and kiss him, and I seriously didn't even know until the festival had ended that her boyfriend was actually also there - I saw him being Very Sad and knew he must've seen them, but otherwise I wouldn't have even noticed. Also, her relationship with him was still pretty decent even though he'd just caught her cheating - neither bar was in the red, and romance was still filled almost completely. Relationship with his friend, who she cheated with, also didn't decrease at all. Ugh.
The current iteration doesn't gel with as many play styles and the direction isn't for everyone.
The games has ALWAYS been somewhat cartoony, goofy and campy....in a good way. It was never intended to be a serious life simulation. As described by Wright, it was intended to be a parody of consumerism. It may not have "looked" as cartoony because the graphics were limited to a 2D pixelated look back then. People tend to look at fond things from their past with rose-colored glasses though. The game was always comical and cartoony:
Dust cloud fights...burglars that looked they were straight out of a Three Stooges skit.....the grim reaper....the genie in the bottle....Servo. All part of first Sims game.
With that said I do agree with others that TS4 is lacking in...something. I can't quite put my finger on it. But for me the peak of the series was TS2, I loved the premades that came with the game, the worlds, the expansions, the opportunities. For me it was by far the best game.
Then TS3 game along and added many things that improved on the game, mainly the open world. Which many people now look back at and criticize, but it really made the game feel more alive and more real and imo should have been improved upon instead of just scraped for the weird mixed thing TS4 offers. The ideal game for me would be TS2 with an open-world town.
I don't know as much as others here about the behind-the-scenes with the games, so I can't pinpoint a turning-point where things feel like they changed. I just know that between TS3 and 4, something definitely seems to have changed in the goal of the series. We have a lot more visually that is stunning, but so much feels limited by small neighborhoods, limited control of things like retail, restaurants, and apartments, "destination neighborhoods," and expansion packs that come out and just feel so empty. I don't know what changed behind-the-scenes but for me it has created a game that is less immersive. I play it now because it looks the best and offers the most seamless experience, but I honestly just wish someone would remake the TS2.
I can't believe it has been all that time since the Sims 1! When the Sims 1 came out it took me a little time to come around to buying and playing the game. I was at the time very into adventure and role playing type of games and couldn't really see the fun in controlling little people, although I do remember seeing the adverts on the TV with the family in the room and a kid swinging from the chandelier, it looked like a mad house LOL. But once I got the base pack and started playing there was no room for any other game in my life, it completely took over and soon I had the collection, playing too many hours in the day.
Even when the Sims 2 was released I didn't think the game could get any better so continued to play the Sims 1, but hearing so much good stuff about the Sims 2 I succumbed and eventually bought the base game to try it. It was to me the best game ever. I had never had so much fun playing the game, discussing and reading posts on the Sims 2 forum. I made some stories, houses, and even my very first video. I got and played the 3 Sim Stories for the Sims 2 they brought out, I was hooked. I think in the Sims 2 it was easier to make stories for our challenges or help guides as I liked to do. Our pictures loaded into a file within the game and we could write underneath as we went along, playing the game. Then we could load it up to our Sim page on the Sims 2 website. It seemed a lot easier to share things back in those days. Things to me where a lot simpler back then, but now 18 years on and being a senior I probably find it harder to do the things I did back then.
I like reality in the game but I don't want too much reality. I don't want my Sims having to do laundry, yes it is part of everyday life but surely not in a game which is suppose to be fun! I enjoyed the quirkiness that the Sims 2 brought, the funny little "out of our control" things that happened in the game. Like when one of my Sim's had two lovers, moved one of them in and the other turned up on the doorstep to have a little "chat" and a "fight" with the other lover while my Sim was away at work. Something I would have never expected to happen. The flaming bag of poo being left on the doorstep after upsetting another Sim or jilting a lover. Mrs Crumplebottom appearing at the nightclubs, The Social Bunny, The Thief taking stuff and if you had an alarm how the police would turn up and sometimes make an arrest. How gifts where left on the doorstep after a great date, (now they just go into the Sims household inventory). So many things that made the game fun to play. I feel much of this has been lost in the Sims 4, although the game has got better since it was first launched.
I know the open neighbourhood was awesome in the Sims 3 but I had to limit my time in playing because all the zooming in and out to do things just made me dizzy. People may moan about loading screens in the Sims 2 and Sim 4, but I never found it a problem. I prefer that to one vast neighbourhood that I had to keep zooming in and out of to get around, although the cars and bicycles where great to follow our Sim with. The open neighbourhood had its merits it wasn't for me. The Sims 3 had a lot of content maybe too much to concentrate on.
I haven't really done a lot of building in the Sims 3 or Sims 4, although that was one part of what I loved about the Sims 2, the simplicity of it. We had plenty of space to make the neighbourhood "our" own and further blank templates to add them to our game.
I haven't tried any challenges in the Sims 4 but I used to play a lot of them with the Sims 2. I don't know if the Sims 4 would be as much fun playing some of the challenges as I haven't seen any quirky things happening in the Sims 4. In fact after hundreds of hours of playing I saw my first fight in the game with two non playing Sims after I installed Vampires. I have seen a few fires in the game but that isn't as exciting as it was before with the firefighters turning up. It's not like I want my Sims to die in a fire, I don't, but now they run to a place of safety and after a time can try and put the fire out themselves. I didn't wait to see if the whole house would burn down before getting my Sim to put it out LOL
I don't dislike the Sims 4, there are many aspects I like about it, it's not addictive for me as the Sims 1 or the Sims 2 used to be. And maybe it's my age (smiles) and that the younger people enjoy what is being done in the game today.
Yeah I don't care about the art style. I care about being able to do whatever the hec I want. TS4 doesn't provide that at all. I agree with everything you said EnkiSchmidt