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Everyone loses without a CAW tool
DreamaDove
Posts: 393 Member
I wrote this in the general forums and thought it belonged in here instead
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TS4's way of cutting corners is what's getting it into trouble.
This time, if they had at the onset of the game released basegame WITH a Create A World tool (or even released the tool short after) then instead of using up budget and resources making worlds for us, they could have dedicated that to debugging and adding new game play and content. We could have made our own worlds. And for those of us who suck at building, there's many capable and willing builders who would have undoubtedly created gorgeous worlds and put them up for download in the gallery. They said the tool was underused in ts3, but there's no need for everyone to be a building when we can all reap the benefits of CAW through the gallery.It would save money in the long run and attracted more ts2 and ts3 simmers to invest in ts4.
But of course, since we can't make our own worlds then:
No one wins in this scenario. Expansions are empty of gameplay. Worlds are tiny. Simmers are restricted. Computers lag.
Simmers are dissatisfied by the game, and the gurus hear nothing but complaints while juggling building and coding new game play. Even EA loses since not as many people buy the game.
Everyone loses.
--
TS4's way of cutting corners is what's getting it into trouble.
This time, if they had at the onset of the game released basegame WITH a Create A World tool (or even released the tool short after) then instead of using up budget and resources making worlds for us, they could have dedicated that to debugging and adding new game play and content. We could have made our own worlds. And for those of us who suck at building, there's many capable and willing builders who would have undoubtedly created gorgeous worlds and put them up for download in the gallery. They said the tool was underused in ts3, but there's no need for everyone to be a building when we can all reap the benefits of CAW through the gallery.It would save money in the long run and attracted more ts2 and ts3 simmers to invest in ts4.
But of course, since we can't make our own worlds then:
- a large chunk of the budget is used up by making worlds leading to empty feeling packs (not much new gameplay)
- not as many people buy the game so the budget shrinks.
- simmers are restricted to ONLY playing the vision of the gurus, since the worlds they like is what we get
- we have to wait on them to add lots to the game, so we run out of room to build quickly
- we can't tailor worlds for our machines so people with low-end computers get lag in complex worlds and people with high-end computers are unnecessarily restricted
No one wins in this scenario. Expansions are empty of gameplay. Worlds are tiny. Simmers are restricted. Computers lag.
Simmers are dissatisfied by the game, and the gurus hear nothing but complaints while juggling building and coding new game play. Even EA loses since not as many people buy the game.
Everyone loses.
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Comments
The creation of new worlds takes up an incredible amount of resscources that could easily spend with expanding the actual game play. With CAW, those players who like a lot of different worls could download custom created ones, choose the size and amount to their liking and players with lower end computers could maybe even delete some of the EA premade worlds and play with some of them. For instance, I heard of many people not playing in Oasis Springs at all, or not liking New Crest or Magnolian Promenade.
I never looked at it that way before (as I don't need CAW, so thanks a lot for opening my eyes to the extend of this issue, @DreamaDove . I hope EA will notice it, too, and react accordingly.
I also get how they probably had to make the loading screens so there's no point in having transportation anymore, but it'd still be nice to get a car and make a garage. Guess the best we can do now is buy a toy car and make it bigger and just pretend. I heard tho we might be able to edit the terrain again like we could before in sims 3 when I agonized over a underground garage for my fallout shelter styled home.
If TS4 had a world creation tool that was intuitive to use and well-designed on a visual level, that would definitely enhance the game enormously. But, they need to learn from the poor design decisions that make TS3's incarnation of the tool confusing and cumbersome to use for more visually-oriented people like me.
I also don't think they lose much in terms of time. Since most things in a world are deco, it means the FX and modeling team does most of the work. They have 0 impact on gameplay or coding.
I will disagree however on the lack of gameplay with EPs. Previous iterations also had worlds involved in packs as well as certain aspects being gameplay lacking or with no depth. This is nothing new, they just need to change up how much depth is put into gameplay additions. Many things are very fleshed out and detailed, others not so much. This trend began with TS3 sadly. In every iteration the packs have plenty of content including TS4. Of course some of it is very shallow, some of it is very detailed.
World building takes a lot of time and budget, that much they've admitted in the past. And if there's not so much to them, then it makes sense that even WE could put those together had we the neighborhood building tools that the team uses.
I thought TS3 packs were quite, well, packed. I don't think that ts3 teams spent as much time world building since they already had a world making system their disposal. Plus, ts3 had a larger team and budget so they could 'afford' to give a chunk to world creation. The ts4 team is much smaller and has a smaller budget, so the money it takes to create 'worlds' has a bigger impact.
A modular system similar to TS2's could work well. In TS2, you choose a template for your neighborhood which includes roads and geological features, then you choose a terrain type (desert, lush, concrete or dirt). TS4's could allow for these choices, as well as choice of skybox, road style, neighborhood decorations, and secret location. Collectables would spawn in pre-determined spots on the map depending on the world template you choose, and the type of collectables that would spawn would be determined by the terrain type chosen (desert, lush, etc.). It could work quite well if the devs could find a way to implement a system like that. Meanwhile, a more in-depth CAW that would be a true improved successor to TS3's could be developed to launch with TS5...if they make a TS5.
I would be okay with that. I don't require super complex worlds with lots of effects. Just something simple that fits the story that I want to tell.
Agree to disagree then. To me things like Showtime were really superficial and shallow. Supernatural which is easily my favorite pack had things like werewolves being so basic and uninteresting, and fairies were not anywhere near in-depth as I would have hoped. Then things like Savvy Seller which IMO was a horrible offense to TS2 OFB. I hated how certain places like Spas were rabbit holes as that is just almost empty content. I much prefer fleshing out things like Vampires (which I welcomed only due to how indepth they are in comparison to previous iterations and sparkling nonsense) or Get Together that make day to day more unique than the usual. But I'll put that aside as that becomes an argument of quantity or quality and I got my share of TS3 up until 2017 so no major complaints.
Also they must have a world building tool for TS4 too, just not public nor tailored for users. The whole "world building takes a lot" IMO is an excuse to justify other short-comings. A 5 lot world with 90% decoration cannot be a hit on anything other than the designers and FX team. On the other hand having packs with worlds in them is another way to incentivize buyers, which EA certainly wants. Without stats we really can't tell if their strategy is working but given how long they want to stretch this iteration, I'd say they are making it rain. For us though, it sucks. I too miss CAW and the worlds that were made.
Even with the larger team and budget, the team that works on world building would have little impact on gameplay or coding. Programmers have little to do with world building in this iteration because the worlds are so simplistic. So really I don't believe everything they say at all. One single modder was able to create and fix so many things by himself on TS3 where I had a multiple world save going for 2 years without corruption or bloating that it is impossible for me to believe they couldn't fix the myriad of issues in TS3.
I am in favor of CAW in TS4 don't get me wrong there. Being able to have other worlds with highrises would be phenomenal for example.
Yes! The playgrounds bother me so much! I tried placing a modded swingset in the spice market playground, but there was no room ;___; I need to move the monkey bars and the basketball hoop in order to place the swingsets! There's so many missed opportunities... most of the time leaving your lot is kinda pointless since there's nothing to do out there. There's 'playgrounds' in NC that are composed of 3 monkeybars... ugh. So plain, so boring, and so ugly.
With a few changes it would be epic. EPIC I TELL YOU!
So dont change these things into lots. Just make the world edible like any lot. Its not like we would interfere with traffic or something like that.
while i never used the CAW tool (was too complicated for me and im not creative like that) i think it would be a great addition to sims 4. if it came with templates as mentioned above with preset examples to move around which then let me design or decorate id be all for it. might even pay for it if it was good and flexible enough.
as it stands i primarily play in willow springs as its pretty and i like the layout the most but my own neighborhood would be awesome
There is also an almost hidden path obstructed by trees leading to a tiny area with a big dead tree which could be a very small lot. Cliff lot, hello?
There is so much space wasted in the area. Moving the almost hidden path slightly would leave much room for another medium lot.
There is a huge area between the center and the lake that could be used for another lot without cutting of the access half of the visitors use for no logical reason.
The vladislaus lot is a mess in my opinion. The gravestones are just scattered inside and outside the fence. Is it a graveyard or just some tombstone junkyard? The mist looks nice but there are big holes in it that I like to fix.
I dont see any logical reason to not allow us to edit the world to our liking. I mean multiplayer isnt planned anyway so whats the reason to not give us a world build mode?
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I do miss the ability to allow the players to create new worlds for the game and the fact that the worlds are "small" compared to Sims 2 and 3.
Maybe it's something they might be working on, but can't tell us yet.
If you want more furniture and clothes, then this applies to you, too. My argument is that A LOT of resources are used up by the devs to create worlds since we can't create our own. If we had CAW, instead of making more worlds, the devs could devote themselves to other things: like more retro furniture and clothing.
My argument is that many resources are used up making worlds that could be put to better use, so I agree with you. If we could make our own worlds, then the devs could make other content that you'd like to see.