I would hope there is some kind of teaser, whether it’s content for Sims 4 (which is good), or an announcement for Sims 5 (which would be very exciting!).
EA has been releasing EPs mostly in November and December. Get to Work was released in March 2015 and Get Together came out that later that same year. City Living and Cats and Dogs were released in time for the Christmas market in 2016 and 2017 respectively. But knowing EA will not be releasing Anthem until 2019 rather than this fall, they may take a look at releasing more packs for Sims4 this summer and fall to keep their sales numbers up since they won't have the surge of sales from Anthem they had expected to have. That strategy might be the reason EA is withholding announcements of any kind. The development teams for game packs and stuff packs might be hard at work to get these packs out ASAP, while the expansion pack team is scrambling to finish an expansion to be released in September.
I don’t believe so because to me it seems that EA had a few doubts in the beginning about the new GPs and therefore only released one GP per year. But since then EA has doubled the number of GPs and cut down on EPs instead. Especially Cats&Dogs was so small that it more reasonably could have been sold just as a GP IMO. So to me it seems that EA likely could be considering not to make EPs anymore at all but only GPs and SPs. The reason must be that both GPs and SPs have proved to sell better than EPs which again must be because of their lower price.
I expect one more EP for TS4 though. But for TS5 EA may not unlikely decide to only make GPs and SPs - most likely at least 3 GPs each year though if TS5 doesn’t get EPs too.
I guess what grant (I think it was him in the interview) said that people will say “I can’t believe they’re doing all this stuff” it had a different meaning. It really meant would be saying “I can’t believe they’re doing this— no teaser, and nothing released for the April-June quarter, and an appalling surprise ‘My first pet’ stuff pack that they never teased”
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
I guess what grant (I think it was him in the interview) said that people will say “I can’t believe they’re doing all this stuff” it had a different meaning. It really meant would be saying “I can’t believe they’re doing this— no teaser, and nothing released for the April-June quarter, and an appalling surprise ‘My first pet’ stuff pack that they never teased”
Good point what if whatever they are doing is so awful that, that is all everyone is saying XD
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
We just think differently and of course we are only guessing. You speculate mostly about the missing teaser and their advertising about EA Play. But I don’t believe in putting too much weight on such things or overinterpretating them. What interests me much more is the whole tendency about the game and the packs. Here we have seen how EA has changed everything graduately from TS2 to TS3 to TS4 and in the following ways:
1. Originally we got big EPs to buy in physical stores and no SPs.
2. Then EA began to experiment with SPs with only stuff and no gameplay. This mainly happened in 2006.
3. TS3 got 11 EPs and 9 SPs. Most of the time 2 EPs each year but in 2012-2013 even 3 EPs each year. EA didn’t seem to think that this experiment was successful though and likely therefore removed the Salt Lake Study from the Sims game development.
4. Then TS4 was released and EA reduced the number of EPs to only one EP each year but attempted to compensate by also releasing 1 GP and by now also adding a little gameplay to the SPs.
5. The new strategy for the Sims 4 seemed to work well for EA. So EA decided to double the number of yearly GPs and release as many SPs as possible and with even more gameplay. But the EPs even got less and less content which makes me doubt if EA even will continue making EPs at all. It seems to me that EA more likely will just release one small EP each year until TS5 is released and then just stop and likely because the cheaper SPs and GPs just sell better.
This has been the development for the packs and I don’t think that EA will go back. Therefore an early EP in 2018 would surprise me even more than if EA instead of again releasing an EP just released an extra GP instead and then completely stopped making EPs.
I guess what grant (I think it was him in the interview) said that people will say “I can’t believe they’re doing all this stuff” it had a different meaning. It really meant would be saying “I can’t believe they’re doing this— no teaser, and nothing released for the April-June quarter, and an appalling surprise ‘My first pet’ stuff pack that they never teased”
Good point what if whatever they are doing is so awful that, that is all everyone is saying XD
Yes, I think marketing wise this was the worst possible moment to stop the quarterly teasers (at least for this quarter). Right after the awful My First Pet situation and the lost of trust from many simmers, going silent for who knows how long is really a bad decision.
I get that this is not related to them, but it is to us, the consumers, is normal to be sceptical now since the last thing we got from the team was a shameful pack announced in a shameful way (not included in the last QT).
Origin ID is: AlbaWaterhouse
All my creations are CC free.
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
We just think differently and of course we are only guessing. You speculate mostly about the missing teaser and their advertising about EA Play. But I don’t believe in putting too much weight on such things or overinterpretating them. What interests me much more is the whole tendency about the game and the packs. Here we have seen how EA has changed everything graduately from TS2 to TS3 to TS4 and in the following ways:
1. Originally we got big EPs to buy in physical stores and no SPs.
2. Then EA began to experiment with SPs with only stuff and no gameplay. This mainly happened in 2006.
3. TS3 got 11 EPs and 9 SPs. Most of the time 2 EPs each year but in 2012-2013 even 3 EPs each year. EA didn’t seem to think that this experiment was successful though and likely therefore removed the Salt Lake Study from the Sims game development.
4. Then TS4 was released and EA reduced the number of EPs to only one EP each year but attempted to compensate by also releasing 1 GP and by now also adding a little gameplay to the SPs.
5. The new strategy for the Sims 4 seemed to work well for EA. So EA decided to double the number of yearly GPs and release as many SPs as possible and with even more gameplay. But the EPs even got less and less content which makes me doubt if EA even will continue making EPs at all. It seems to me that EA more likely will just release one small EP each year until TS5 is released and then just stop and likely because the cheaper SPs and GPs just sell better.
This has been the development for the packs and I don’t think that EA will go back. Therefore an early EP in 2018 would surprise me even more than if EA instead of again releasing an EP just released an extra GP instead and then completely stopped making EPs.
Then GPs need to get much bigger because I can't see pets being a GP and I feel like sims 5 will fail because I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy a billion Gps for one concept then again, here we are puzzling the vacation pack together.
I'd rather have a big Ep and GPs to fill the gaps or add extra stuff or broaden the To at a later date.
@06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
> @Erpe said: > @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be. > > Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
> @Erpe said:
> @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
>
> Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
Seasons is mainly only about adding different kinds of weather and this is don’t even in free games like the Sims Freeplay. In Sims Freeplay the weather can be changed by issuing edicts or it changes automatically in some of the events. Adding spring, summer, autumn and winter is just another way to change the weather automatically.
New clothes is also very easy to add and is in Sims Freeplay mostly done for free as prices in the events even though some of it is also offered for high prices in the store. In a game like TS4 it could also either be added in free updates or in SPs.
So the different weather could even have been part of the basegame like EA already had planned for TS2. Or it could be added as part of a GP.
So why was Seasons even an EP in TS2 and TS3? There were no real reasons for this except that GPs hadn’t been invented yet. To justify Seasons as an EP EA then added more things like the plant sims in TS2 and the aliens in TS3. But such things could of course just as well be added in another GP for future Sims games.
SimGuruDrake more than likely gave EA notice of her imminent departure, allowing EA time enough to appoint a replacement before now. I'm sorry if I sound a bit skeptical of their explanation but in my mind, it sounds as if they are late getting some kind of pack or expansion finished and don't know when it will be ready to be released. EA Play is in June. That is a long time to wait on releasing any news about Sims4. But seeing as they just released a game pack and a stuff pack I am keeping my fingers crossed for an expansion pack being next.
It can take a long time to fill a high level spot like Community Manager. First the opening gets posted in-house for people already employed by EA. Then after a couple of weeks it'll be open to the general public. Then you have the interview process -- usually multiple interviews with the various teams you'll be working with. That can take some time as people are on vacation (especially since we had the spring break period in there) or out of the office for other reasons.
Maybe the announcement will be the introduction of the new Community Manager?
Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
Maybe they're working on so many projects that they're not sure what's going to be done this quarter. I still think that MFP was originally planned to be an April release but since it finished early the executives wanted to release it in March so they could count the revenue before the fiscal year ended. And that's why it wasn't in the teaser for last quarter.
I still feel like it's way too early for Seasons -- but they could be working on a GP for release in late June (after first reveal at EA Play), either Witches/general Magic, or something to do with education that could be a prequel for University in 2019, with Sims 5 announced late in the year and released February 2020, the 20th anniversary of the original The Sims release.
Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
> @Erpe said:
> @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
>
> Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
Seasons is mainly only about adding different kinds of weather and this is don’t even in free games like the Sims Freeplay. In Sims Freeplay the weather can be changed by issuing edicts or it changes automatically in some of the events. Adding spring, summer, autumn and winter is just another way to change the weather automatically.
New clothes is also very easy to add and is in Sims Freeplay mostly done for free as prices in the events even though some of it is also offered for high prices in the store. In a game like TS4 it could also either be added in free updates or in SPs.
So the different weather could even have been part of the basegame like EA already had planned for TS2. Or it could be added as part of a GP.
So why was Seasons even an EP in TS2 and TS3? There were no real reasons for this except that GPs hadn’t been invented yet. To justify Seasons as an EP EA then added more things like the plant sims in TS2 and the aliens in TS3. But such things could of course just as well be added in another GP for future Sims games.
Programming for weather is more complex than that, especially in a game like Sims 4 where you have multiple climates. Sims 3 may have been easier because each world was completely self-contained, but to do it right if it's snowing in Windenburg (northern climate) and you travel to Oasis Springs then you'd have only rain (desert climate), maybe lighter snow in Brindleton Bay or Newcrest and maybe just a heavy frost in Willow Creek. So you have to ensure the right weather shows up as the world is loading.
Then if you're going to have weather, you need to set the seasons properly so they make sense.
There are also the side effects of weather -- Sims dressing in the right type of clothing for the season, so you don't have them roasting in an Oasis Springs Summer, or freezing their rear end off in a Windenburg Winter. Probably will involve not just new CAS but also recoding existing CAS for the type of weather it's appropriate for (the ugly Christmas sweaters go into winterwear, for example, or the spaghetti strap tops for spring/summer. That's going to be a big job, probably on par with the gender patch.
Also will gardening be affected by the changing weather, with periods of time when plants are dormant unless you bring the plants inside somehow (using planter boxes/bowls). Finally, seasonal activities from snowball throwing in winter/water balloons in summer or if they'll tie in the current seasonal challenges into the game; it would be cool to have the Easter egg hunt activate in Spring, the PlantSims in Summer and the Dia de los Muertos in Autumn so there's no pressure to finish the collection in one season because you could work on it the next season.
So when you look at the pack as a whole, it's easy to see why it's big enough to require the budget (time and money) of an EP -- it's way too big for a GP.
Check out my Gallery! Origin ID: justme22
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
> @Erpe said:
> @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
>
> Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
Seasons is mainly only about adding different kinds of weather and this is don’t even in free games like the Sims Freeplay. In Sims Freeplay the weather can be changed by issuing edicts or it changes automatically in some of the events. Adding spring, summer, autumn and winter is just another way to change the weather automatically.
New clothes is also very easy to add and is in Sims Freeplay mostly done for free as prices in the events even though some of it is also offered for high prices in the store. In a game like TS4 it could also either be added in free updates or in SPs.
So the different weather could even have been part of the basegame like EA already had planned for TS2. Or it could be added as part of a GP.
So why was Seasons even an EP in TS2 and TS3? There were no real reasons for this except that GPs hadn’t been invented yet. To justify Seasons as an EP EA then added more things like the plant sims in TS2 and the aliens in TS3. But such things could of course just as well be added in another GP for future Sims games.
Programming for weather is more complex than that, especially in a game like Sims 4 where you have multiple climates. Sims 3 may have been easier because each world was completely self-contained, but to do it right if it's snowing in Windenburg (northern climate) and you travel to Oasis Springs then you'd have only rain (desert climate), maybe lighter snow in Brindleton Bay or Newcrest and maybe just a heavy frost in Willow Creek. So you have to ensure the right weather shows up as the world is loading.
Then if you're going to have weather, you need to set the seasons properly so they make sense.
There are also the side effects of weather -- Sims dressing in the right type of clothing for the season, so you don't have them roasting in an Oasis Springs Summer, or freezing their rear end off in a Windenburg Winter. Probably will involve not just new CAS but also recoding existing CAS for the type of weather it's appropriate for (the ugly Christmas sweaters go into winterwear, for example, or the spaghetti strap tops for spring/summer. That's going to be a big job, probably on par with the gender patch.
Also will gardening be affected by the changing weather, with periods of time when plants are dormant unless you bring the plants inside somehow (using planter boxes/bowls). Finally, seasonal activities from snowball throwing in winter/water balloons in summer or if they'll tie in the current seasonal challenges into the game; it would be cool to have the Easter egg hunt activate in Spring, the PlantSims in Summer and the Dia de los Muertos in Autumn so there's no pressure to finish the collection in one season because you could work on it the next season.
So when you look at the pack as a whole, it's easy to see why it's big enough to require the budget (time and money) of an EP -- it's way too big for a GP.
Weather isn’t a trivial thing to add. I agree that much. But even Sims Freeplay has different weather which even depends on which lot you play in the same neighborhood and also on the current event where a visit from new special sims can’t cause the weather to change.
Changing clothes automatically isn’t that special either. In the Sims Freeplay my sims do it all the time. Sometimes because I send them to the shower or to go swimming etc. and sometimes just because I send them to school or work.
So I agree that the weather would be too complex to just add in a SP. But it even could be part of the basegame and it sure could easily be added in a GP because it isn’t more complex than that.
We had an Easter egg hunt in the Sims Freeplay too btw
> @Erpe said:
> @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
>
> Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
Seasons is mainly only about adding different kinds of weather and this is don’t even in free games like the Sims Freeplay. In Sims Freeplay the weather can be changed by issuing edicts or it changes automatically in some of the events. Adding spring, summer, autumn and winter is just another way to change the weather automatically.
New clothes is also very easy to add and is in Sims Freeplay mostly done for free as prices in the events even though some of it is also offered for high prices in the store. In a game like TS4 it could also either be added in free updates or in SPs.
So the different weather could even have been part of the basegame like EA already had planned for TS2. Or it could be added as part of a GP.
So why was Seasons even an EP in TS2 and TS3? There were no real reasons for this except that GPs hadn’t been invented yet. To justify Seasons as an EP EA then added more things like the plant sims in TS2 and the aliens in TS3. But such things could of course just as well be added in another GP for future Sims games.
Programming for weather is more complex than that, especially in a game like Sims 4 where you have multiple climates. Sims 3 may have been easier because each world was completely self-contained, but to do it right if it's snowing in Windenburg (northern climate) and you travel to Oasis Springs then you'd have only rain (desert climate), maybe lighter snow in Brindleton Bay or Newcrest and maybe just a heavy frost in Willow Creek. So you have to ensure the right weather shows up as the world is loading.
Then if you're going to have weather, you need to set the seasons properly so they make sense.
There are also the side effects of weather -- Sims dressing in the right type of clothing for the season, so you don't have them roasting in an Oasis Springs Summer, or freezing their rear end off in a Windenburg Winter. Probably will involve not just new CAS but also recoding existing CAS for the type of weather it's appropriate for (the ugly Christmas sweaters go into winterwear, for example, or the spaghetti strap tops for spring/summer. That's going to be a big job, probably on par with the gender patch.
Also will gardening be affected by the changing weather, with periods of time when plants are dormant unless you bring the plants inside somehow (using planter boxes/bowls). Finally, seasonal activities from snowball throwing in winter/water balloons in summer or if they'll tie in the current seasonal challenges into the game; it would be cool to have the Easter egg hunt activate in Spring, the PlantSims in Summer and the Dia de los Muertos in Autumn so there's no pressure to finish the collection in one season because you could work on it the next season.
So when you look at the pack as a whole, it's easy to see why it's big enough to require the budget (time and money) of an EP -- it's way too big for a GP.
Weather isn’t a trivial thing to add. I agree that much. But even Sims Freeplay has different weather which even depends on which lot you play in the same neighborhood and also on the current event where a visit from new special sims can’t cause the weather to change.
Changing clothes automatically isn’t that special either. In the Sims Freeplay my sims do it all the time. Sometimes because I send them to the shower or to go swimming etc. and sometimes just because I send them to school or work.
So I agree that the weather would be too complex to just add in a SP. But it even could be part of the basegame and it sure could easily be added in a GP because it isn’t more complex than that.
We had an Easter egg hunt in the Sims Freeplay too btw
Seasons is going to be an Expansion Pack 100%, not a GP.
Why would they want to squeeze everything into a 20$ pack, when they can easily squeeze 40$ out of us for not even that much more content? They know how popular Seasons is, so I am 100% sure they will make it into a 40$ EP instead.
Easy choice.
Question will remain: will it be good? Because honestly none of the EP's (including Cats and Dogs) had me impressed and entertained for a long time to be honest.
The novelty of The Sims 4 packs wears off very quickly, and I never had that in past series.
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
Maybe they're working on so many projects that they're not sure what's going to be done this quarter. I still think that MFP was originally planned to be an April release but since it finished early the executives wanted to release it in March so they could count the revenue before the fiscal year ended. And that's why it wasn't in the teaser for last quarter.
I still feel like it's way too early for Seasons -- but they could be working on a GP for release in late June (after first reveal at EA Play), either Witches/general Magic, or something to do with education that could be a prequel for University in 2019, with Sims 5 announced late in the year and released February 2020, the 20th anniversary of the original The Sims release.
I really hope the pack they announce if it isn't Seasons it's Amusement Parks or a Romance Based Pack. I really do need amusement parks in my game right now.
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
Maybe they're working on so many projects that they're not sure what's going to be done this quarter. I still think that MFP was originally planned to be an April release but since it finished early the executives wanted to release it in March so they could count the revenue before the fiscal year ended. And that's why it wasn't in the teaser for last quarter.
I still feel like it's way too early for Seasons -- but they could be working on a GP for release in late June (after first reveal at EA Play), either Witches/general Magic, or something to do with education that could be a prequel for University in 2019, with Sims 5 announced late in the year and released February 2020, the 20th anniversary of the original The Sims release.
I really hope the pack they announce if it isn't Seasons it's Amusement Parks or a Romance Based Pack. I really do need amusement parks in my game right now.
I think it will be a water park pack. But your right we do need amusement packs.
I think we’ll hear something very soon. I sure it will be before June
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
If they let people play “Seasons” at EA play then a lot of things in it will likely be disabled because it isn’t ready or stable enough yet. Also only few of the developers will likely be there and they know what they can tell and what they can’t tell people.
I think it will almost be finished then. I'm predicting Late June for release.
Unless it is a GP it will surprise me if it is released already that early. My guess for the next EP is October or November.
Then why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
Maybe they're working on so many projects that they're not sure what's going to be done this quarter. I still think that MFP was originally planned to be an April release but since it finished early the executives wanted to release it in March so they could count the revenue before the fiscal year ended. And that's why it wasn't in the teaser for last quarter.
I still feel like it's way too early for Seasons -- but they could be working on a GP for release in late June (after first reveal at EA Play), either Witches/general Magic, or something to do with education that could be a prequel for University in 2019, with Sims 5 announced late in the year and released February 2020, the 20th anniversary of the original The Sims release.
I really hope the pack they announce if it isn't Seasons it's Amusement Parks or a Romance Based Pack. I really do need amusement parks in my game right now.
I think it will be a water park pack. But your right we do need amusement packs.
I think we’ll hear something very soon. I sure it will be before June
> @Erpe said:
> @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
>
> Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
Seasons is mainly only about adding different kinds of weather and this is don’t even in free games like the Sims Freeplay. In Sims Freeplay the weather can be changed by issuing edicts or it changes automatically in some of the events. Adding spring, summer, autumn and winter is just another way to change the weather automatically.
New clothes is also very easy to add and is in Sims Freeplay mostly done for free as prices in the events even though some of it is also offered for high prices in the store. In a game like TS4 it could also either be added in free updates or in SPs.
So the different weather could even have been part of the basegame like EA already had planned for TS2. Or it could be added as part of a GP.
So why was Seasons even an EP in TS2 and TS3? There were no real reasons for this except that GPs hadn’t been invented yet. To justify Seasons as an EP EA then added more things like the plant sims in TS2 and the aliens in TS3. But such things could of course just as well be added in another GP for future Sims games.
Programming for weather is more complex than that, especially in a game like Sims 4 where you have multiple climates. Sims 3 may have been easier because each world was completely self-contained, but to do it right if it's snowing in Windenburg (northern climate) and you travel to Oasis Springs then you'd have only rain (desert climate), maybe lighter snow in Brindleton Bay or Newcrest and maybe just a heavy frost in Willow Creek. So you have to ensure the right weather shows up as the world is loading.
Then if you're going to have weather, you need to set the seasons properly so they make sense.
There are also the side effects of weather -- Sims dressing in the right type of clothing for the season, so you don't have them roasting in an Oasis Springs Summer, or freezing their rear end off in a Windenburg Winter. Probably will involve not just new CAS but also recoding existing CAS for the type of weather it's appropriate for (the ugly Christmas sweaters go into winterwear, for example, or the spaghetti strap tops for spring/summer. That's going to be a big job, probably on par with the gender patch.
Also will gardening be affected by the changing weather, with periods of time when plants are dormant unless you bring the plants inside somehow (using planter boxes/bowls). Finally, seasonal activities from snowball throwing in winter/water balloons in summer or if they'll tie in the current seasonal challenges into the game; it would be cool to have the Easter egg hunt activate in Spring, the PlantSims in Summer and the Dia de los Muertos in Autumn so there's no pressure to finish the collection in one season because you could work on it the next season.
So when you look at the pack as a whole, it's easy to see why it's big enough to require the budget (time and money) of an EP -- it's way too big for a GP.
Weather isn’t a trivial thing to add. I agree that much. But even Sims Freeplay has different weather which even depends on which lot you play in the same neighborhood and also on the current event where a visit from new special sims can’t cause the weather to change.
Changing clothes automatically isn’t that special either. In the Sims Freeplay my sims do it all the time. Sometimes because I send them to the shower or to go swimming etc. and sometimes just because I send them to school or work.
So I agree that the weather would be too complex to just add in a SP. But it even could be part of the basegame and it sure could easily be added in a GP because it isn’t more complex than that.
We had an Easter egg hunt in the Sims Freeplay too btw
Seasons is going to be an Expansion Pack 100%, not a GP.
You are likely right - this time. EA will most likely release one more EP for TS4 in September, October or December this year and this EP could likely be Seasons (maybe with a different name though). But it could also very likely be the last EP for TS4 and TS5 May not get any EPs at all.
Why would they want to squeeze everything into a 20$ pack, when they can easily squeeze 40$ out of us for not even that much more content? They know how popular Seasons is, so I am 100% sure they will make it into a 40$ EP instead.
Easy choice.
Then why has EA only released one EP each year and replaced all the other traditional EPs with GPs and SPs?
I still don’t believe that EA’s reason is the hardcore simmers in the forum who mainly are adults who just buy everything for every Sims game. But EA’s reason for only releasing one EP each year must be the sales numbers that again must be lower for EPs than they have been for GPs and especially for SPs. And the reason must again be the young casual simmers who usually don’t visit the forum but only get some of the packs when their parents let them download them.
Look also of the size of the already released EPs. They are small and lack a lot of things compared to the EPs for the previous games. This again tells me that EA has given the EPs very low priority because they aren’t nearly as profitable for EA to make as the SPs and GPs are. So EA only wants to make them if they can sell well even with less content. But EA of course knows that this won’t work forever. Therefore I strongly suspect that EA soon will stop making EPs at all and likely make that decision for real when the Sims 5 is released.
Question will remain: will it be good? Because honestly none of the EP's (including Cats and Dogs) had me impressed and entertained for a long time to be honest.
Exactly!
The novelty of The Sims 4 packs wears off very quickly, and I never had that in past series.
The Sims 4 is too much about just letting us watch autonomous behavior and too much about total happiness. This is likely a consequence of EA considering very young girls as the most important group of customers for Sims games. But I need more challenges and consequences of my way of playing instead of all this happiness and autonomous behavior. I just can’t play a game which partly only want to be a movie about happiness instead of a real game.
I believe “soon” may be on or about the time if EA Play. So a few weeks prior to the event perhaps. I still believe nothing is coming this quarter (paid content) and an expansion could be announced just before EA Play, playable at the event, then released first week of July or August. I am happy to be wrong, but I won’t get my hopes up for any news before the end of May.
I don't see that happen. If they announce the EP just before EA Play and have it playable there, they have almost no time themselves to show us the game via livestreams, blogs and all that stuff. EP's have like 8+ weeks marketing attached to them and if they make it playable at EA Play, they cannot have a solid embargo/NDA.
With thousands of people coming to such events, it's impossible for them to control what info gets out and what stays in. So IF we are getting an EP this quarter, I guess they will announce it within 2 weeks, just to have enough marketing time before the event to promote the EP and tell us more about it. Then they can release it after EA Play in late june.
But we will see.
True, they have sims camp (with no doubt the same youtubers that go every time, sorry had to get that in but its true lol ) then embargo it for weeks, the gameplay trailers they do that always introduce different aspects of the ep like features, the world etc.
Edit: I recon its possibly going to be something to do with console maybe a switch announcement, unlikly but you never know, sims mobile available to play and then an ep announcement like C&D last year
Comments
(She/her)
I expect one more EP for TS4 though. But for TS5 EA may not unlikely decide to only make GPs and SPs - most likely at least 3 GPs each year though if TS5 doesn’t get EPs too.
(She/her)
Exactly, the last time SimGuruNinja said "soon" in February 2015, we got news in April 2015.
I think in 2 months at EA Play,
The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
- 👕 [CAS] Male content | 💰 §1 Million Lifestyle | ♂️ Man lifestyle for The Sims | ♻️ Content from The Sims
- 🔨 [Build/Buy Mode] Ideas | 📱 Ideas from The Sims FreePlay | ✈️ Vacation : Gameplay update | 🥦 New meals
The Sims 4 General DiscussionEA Dictionary
It's a way to keep the spotlight while nothing is happening for a long time.
The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
- 👕 [CAS] Male content | 💰 §1 Million Lifestyle | ♂️ Man lifestyle for The Sims | ♻️ Content from The Sims
- 🔨 [Build/Buy Mode] Ideas | 📱 Ideas from The Sims FreePlay | ✈️ Vacation : Gameplay update | 🥦 New meals
The Sims 4 General DiscussionThen why are they announcing something and we're not getting any quarterly teaser this quarter? There has to be paid content coming sometimes this quarter. That's why I'm thinking Expansion Pack in Late June.
Good point what if whatever they are doing is so awful that, that is all everyone is saying XD
complete forum tutorial
Thank you @MDianaSanders for halloween-fying Golluma
1. Originally we got big EPs to buy in physical stores and no SPs.
2. Then EA began to experiment with SPs with only stuff and no gameplay. This mainly happened in 2006.
3. TS3 got 11 EPs and 9 SPs. Most of the time 2 EPs each year but in 2012-2013 even 3 EPs each year. EA didn’t seem to think that this experiment was successful though and likely therefore removed the Salt Lake Study from the Sims game development.
4. Then TS4 was released and EA reduced the number of EPs to only one EP each year but attempted to compensate by also releasing 1 GP and by now also adding a little gameplay to the SPs.
5. The new strategy for the Sims 4 seemed to work well for EA. So EA decided to double the number of yearly GPs and release as many SPs as possible and with even more gameplay. But the EPs even got less and less content which makes me doubt if EA even will continue making EPs at all. It seems to me that EA more likely will just release one small EP each year until TS5 is released and then just stop and likely because the cheaper SPs and GPs just sell better.
This has been the development for the packs and I don’t think that EA will go back. Therefore an early EP in 2018 would surprise me even more than if EA instead of again releasing an EP just released an extra GP instead and then completely stopped making EPs.
Yes, I think marketing wise this was the worst possible moment to stop the quarterly teasers (at least for this quarter). Right after the awful My First Pet situation and the lost of trust from many simmers, going silent for who knows how long is really a bad decision.
I get that this is not related to them, but it is to us, the consumers, is normal to be sceptical now since the last thing we got from the team was a shameful pack announced in a shameful way (not included in the last QT).
All my creations are CC free.
Then GPs need to get much bigger because I can't see pets being a GP and I feel like sims 5 will fail because I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy a billion Gps for one concept then again, here we are puzzling the vacation pack together.
I'd rather have a big Ep and GPs to fill the gaps or add extra stuff or broaden the To at a later date.
complete forum tutorial
Thank you @MDianaSanders for halloween-fying Golluma
Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
> @06Bon06 I can’t predict anything about TS5 except that I am quite sure that EA will attempt to make it as different from TS3 and TS4 as possible. Pets and other packs won’t be made in the same way again and we don’t even know yet what the main new idea in TS5 will be.
>
> Big EPs aren’t likely to return though because EA has clearly given them lower and lower priority. So my immediate guess would be only GPs and SPs as mentioned. But EA has also clearly been experimenting with different marketing strategies. So EA could of course also do yet another experiment with the Sims 5 packs. I just don’t believe that EA again will give EPs higher priority. But beside that I just don’t know what we may expect.
I think Seasons, if they do it (and I think they will) has to be an EP. There's just too much in the development to sell it for the price of a game pack. And no, I don't think they'll break it up, either, because of the basic engine for the change of seasons - it would be like selling cats in one game pack, and dogs in another. While each animal has its own characteristics, the creation of the pet life-form and all the interactions with various existing objects is where the real work was done, and not everyone would buy both packs. You don't want people paying $20 or $30 just to get cats when the development costs demand $60. (Breaking out small pets made more sense, because they're objects, so they don't need a whole lot of extra coding.)
You can't look at a pack just in terms of the number of objects. If Seasons only has three outerwear coats, people would be unhappy (and Llama forbid they try to make up for that by throwing in more coats with a stuff pack, because the coats will only work if you have Seasons). What actually costs money isn't the coats, but the coding for Sims to change into them when the weather is cold.
I do think it will be a holiday-season release, because it *is* so big, and they want maximum sales for the cost of development. I don't think we'll see another EP before that. Game packs and stuff packs, yes. (For all the brouhaha, My First Pet actually sold quite well.) In any event, I'm with everyone else, wanting a hint at what's coming next!
New clothes is also very easy to add and is in Sims Freeplay mostly done for free as prices in the events even though some of it is also offered for high prices in the store. In a game like TS4 it could also either be added in free updates or in SPs.
So the different weather could even have been part of the basegame like EA already had planned for TS2. Or it could be added as part of a GP.
So why was Seasons even an EP in TS2 and TS3? There were no real reasons for this except that GPs hadn’t been invented yet. To justify Seasons as an EP EA then added more things like the plant sims in TS2 and the aliens in TS3. But such things could of course just as well be added in another GP for future Sims games.
It can take a long time to fill a high level spot like Community Manager. First the opening gets posted in-house for people already employed by EA. Then after a couple of weeks it'll be open to the general public. Then you have the interview process -- usually multiple interviews with the various teams you'll be working with. That can take some time as people are on vacation (especially since we had the spring break period in there) or out of the office for other reasons.
Maybe the announcement will be the introduction of the new Community Manager?
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
Maybe they're working on so many projects that they're not sure what's going to be done this quarter. I still think that MFP was originally planned to be an April release but since it finished early the executives wanted to release it in March so they could count the revenue before the fiscal year ended. And that's why it wasn't in the teaser for last quarter.
I still feel like it's way too early for Seasons -- but they could be working on a GP for release in late June (after first reveal at EA Play), either Witches/general Magic, or something to do with education that could be a prequel for University in 2019, with Sims 5 announced late in the year and released February 2020, the 20th anniversary of the original The Sims release.
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
Programming for weather is more complex than that, especially in a game like Sims 4 where you have multiple climates. Sims 3 may have been easier because each world was completely self-contained, but to do it right if it's snowing in Windenburg (northern climate) and you travel to Oasis Springs then you'd have only rain (desert climate), maybe lighter snow in Brindleton Bay or Newcrest and maybe just a heavy frost in Willow Creek. So you have to ensure the right weather shows up as the world is loading.
Then if you're going to have weather, you need to set the seasons properly so they make sense.
There are also the side effects of weather -- Sims dressing in the right type of clothing for the season, so you don't have them roasting in an Oasis Springs Summer, or freezing their rear end off in a Windenburg Winter. Probably will involve not just new CAS but also recoding existing CAS for the type of weather it's appropriate for (the ugly Christmas sweaters go into winterwear, for example, or the spaghetti strap tops for spring/summer. That's going to be a big job, probably on par with the gender patch.
Also will gardening be affected by the changing weather, with periods of time when plants are dormant unless you bring the plants inside somehow (using planter boxes/bowls). Finally, seasonal activities from snowball throwing in winter/water balloons in summer or if they'll tie in the current seasonal challenges into the game; it would be cool to have the Easter egg hunt activate in Spring, the PlantSims in Summer and the Dia de los Muertos in Autumn so there's no pressure to finish the collection in one season because you could work on it the next season.
So when you look at the pack as a whole, it's easy to see why it's big enough to require the budget (time and money) of an EP -- it's way too big for a GP.
Fun must be always -- Tomas Hertl (San Jose Sharks hockey player)
Changing clothes automatically isn’t that special either. In the Sims Freeplay my sims do it all the time. Sometimes because I send them to the shower or to go swimming etc. and sometimes just because I send them to school or work.
So I agree that the weather would be too complex to just add in a SP. But it even could be part of the basegame and it sure could easily be added in a GP because it isn’t more complex than that.
We had an Easter egg hunt in the Sims Freeplay too btw
Seasons is going to be an Expansion Pack 100%, not a GP.
Why would they want to squeeze everything into a 20$ pack, when they can easily squeeze 40$ out of us for not even that much more content? They know how popular Seasons is, so I am 100% sure they will make it into a 40$ EP instead.
Easy choice.
Question will remain: will it be good? Because honestly none of the EP's (including Cats and Dogs) had me impressed and entertained for a long time to be honest.
The novelty of The Sims 4 packs wears off very quickly, and I never had that in past series.
I really hope the pack they announce if it isn't Seasons it's Amusement Parks or a Romance Based Pack. I really do need amusement parks in my game right now.
I think it will be a water park pack. But your right we do need amusement packs.
I think we’ll hear something very soon. I sure it will be before June
I'd love a waterpark pack.
Then why has EA only released one EP each year and replaced all the other traditional EPs with GPs and SPs?
I still don’t believe that EA’s reason is the hardcore simmers in the forum who mainly are adults who just buy everything for every Sims game. But EA’s reason for only releasing one EP each year must be the sales numbers that again must be lower for EPs than they have been for GPs and especially for SPs. And the reason must again be the young casual simmers who usually don’t visit the forum but only get some of the packs when their parents let them download them.
Look also of the size of the already released EPs. They are small and lack a lot of things compared to the EPs for the previous games. This again tells me that EA has given the EPs very low priority because they aren’t nearly as profitable for EA to make as the SPs and GPs are. So EA only wants to make them if they can sell well even with less content. But EA of course knows that this won’t work forever. Therefore I strongly suspect that EA soon will stop making EPs at all and likely make that decision for real when the Sims 5 is released.
Exactly!
The Sims 4 is too much about just letting us watch autonomous behavior and too much about total happiness. This is likely a consequence of EA considering very young girls as the most important group of customers for Sims games. But I need more challenges and consequences of my way of playing instead of all this happiness and autonomous behavior. I just can’t play a game which partly only want to be a movie about happiness instead of a real game.
True, they have sims camp (with no doubt the same youtubers that go every time, sorry had to get that in but its true lol
Edit: I recon its possibly going to be something to do with console maybe a switch announcement, unlikly but you never know, sims mobile available to play and then an ep announcement like C&D last year