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Why isn't TS4 inclusive of family players?
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Sims 2 wasn’t completely simple, it had things that were current at that time. But it was realistic. It had online deliveries, it had choice of being able to go shopping as many people still do. Supermarkets still exist in real life, yes Amazon is popular but the high street hasn’t completely died and shopping for groceries say is still a thing. Also I’ve had an amazon account since 2008 so Amazon was a thing during the sims 2 run. It was hardly set in the dark ages! I would much rather have my sims have to go to the grocery store or order their groceries to be delivered than clicking on the fridge and instantly paying for food
I think that’s lazy and unrealistic. Sims 2 has choices.
Sims 4 has a magic 8 ball- an item I haven’t seen in real life for years but my sister had one as a kid in the 90s. So the sims 4 does use “older things”
Sims 4 has bandwagons. And certainly seeing the increase in online bullying, rise in mental health issues due to children accessing social media from a young age and accessing things inappropriate to them, I would argue that actually raising children and being a child then was a hell of a lot easier. As someone who was a child/teen back then I am forever grateful I didn’t have that kind of thing to worry about. I would have hated social media to be the be all and end all. It’s not healthy.
But I don’t even know how this topic about family play and the sims 4 not being inclusive to family play has become a topic about toy cars and trends. ( And FYI some people do still have remote cars as well as drones. My brother in law is a bit of a car geek and has some model cars that you can control remotely as well as drones.)
Family play to me in the sims shouldn’t come down to sims being able to order anything and it instantly appear in their inventory the way it currently works in sims 4. Give the player choice.
I have to agree, it’s very sad that all of this has been excluded. And I know toddlers can be bathed in 4, but it’s just not the same as the sims 2. It doesn’t have the heart the sims 2 does.
What we have is shallow and fake feeling.
The sims 4 is set in alternative reality. Says the devs when questioned about the lack of back stories.
Haha quite sad but true. I'm a teen so I know what you mean.
IMO, toddlers were made to be more cute in the Sims 4.
Honestly this made me think of something I neglected to mention in my original post. Even the little family play does exist is so barebones.
I've been to restaurants and seen the entire family with their heads stuck in a phone. I'm often bumped into by people not watching where they're going because they're on their phones. In doctor office waiting rooms, grocery stores, in line at the checkout. Everywhere you go it seems people can't put their phones away.
Guess I where I live I do not see so much of that. I must hang out with more people who love to be unplugged from all devices. We have lots of outdoor activities, at least in the good weather months. Only really see people do more electronic fun activities when it is sub-zero temps in the dead of winter.
Agreed. I love my historical save but there are still so many things in game that require technology. I've also noticed that it's a great deal harder to build fun when sims don't have a TV or computer to hand. I've allowed most households to have a gramophone just to make my life easier, though I should probably have only given it to half the households I gave it to.
I think that you missed the entire point.
That remote selfie-stick is part of the problem. Too much in TS4 is concerned with present trends and the 'Me, me, me! Take my picture!' obsession with the current generation.
The OP was asking for gameplay that transcends and appeals to all age groups and play styles, regardless of current trends.
Where I live (U.S. but not the Midwest), people ARE addicted to electronics.
Not only that, where I live, even when people go outside to the park or on hikes, they are more often glued to their phone. Today I saw a guy riding his mountain bike while using his phone. I was like
Sim Stuff by Pegasys
WHAT!? To me, that comparison shows how much the devs focus on the wrong things in TS4. That flying thing in Get Famous is a drone and has ZERO new animations for Sims. It doesn't do anything - it's just like an effect in the world. Plus, it's just a ridiculous, useless invention trying to modernise the Sims; therefore making it dated in years to come. TS4 will never be timeless like the previous games.
That might be the CA bubble they live in but it's not everywhere. I think it's funny TS4 tried to depict life from a bubble point of view. People still get the paper here, we still don't have wifi everywhere, not all people here even want or know what wifi is, nor will they ever care, they still work for a living (physical labor) with their hands and backs, we still like fast cars and sport cars, we still get off our butts and drive or walk to a store, we don't phone in or click for grocery delivery. We still have mom and pop shops like hardware stores that may cost a little more, but it's closer than a mega mall, and we all aren't looking to get likes and money from Youtube and get famous on Twitter or Youtube. Real people still exist but if you listen to everyone else you would think we all disappeared, but we haven't. ETA: And as far as that drone in Get Famous for celebs, if that thing flies over anyone's house you can guess what would happen to it. No, not everyone lives in the techno world bubble. And we aren't handing one year old babies an iphone so they too can become borg. And it may be a reflection of the times about selfies but been there done it with a really old Kodak a hundred of years ago, so no, this generation didn't invent selfies, either. But what we aren't doing is going on vacation just so we can post a selfie on FB. TS4 doesn't reflect real life but a bubble.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/958714/cinebar-custom-content-clothes-updating-links/p1
Missing the newborn features after seeing these
So many activities or ideas seem to revolve around instagram, livestreaming, influencers, likes, etc. It might be modern, but it's pretty dull, especially when so much of it involves Sims spending time doing isolated things with their phones or computers or streaming stations. Even activities that don't involve technology are fairly isolated (from the most recent pack - go sailing! Alone. Lay out on your towel! Alone. Lounge on a chair in the sun! Alone).
Um, no one has said that everywhere is like that - but a majority of the western world IS like that. It isn't just California - I live in the UK and it's like that in every big city.
So it is liberal/progressive "the big city" bubble then? The devs are all living in California, so that is why I call it the California bubble. California is known as the liberal/progressive toilet to many that I know. As such, there is so much things they are missing in-game. My area of the US is not even represented in the game.
I'm only pointing out what isn't in the game that reflect my own experiences, not everyone here is obsessed with a phone (though yes, younger people do carry one) but all of TS4 has a phone, hated that in TS3, hate that in TS4. No paper, not in TS4 cause you know Graham said the world or maybe it was Maxis has moved past reading the paper. Kids still play games together here, but not in TS4. Examples like that, I'm not sure if it isn't the bubble of where they work because they sure have left out the rest of us. ETA: The point I'm making is TS4 is dated. Older games wear longer because they offered many ways to tell the story of your Sim. Today it's all about the technology in TS4, like drones, cell phones, pcs, and careers revolved around social media. How can anyone tell a different story in their head when they are forced to use objects that their character wouldn't use nor even in that time period. TS4 is way, way too restrictive in that area. A phone choice is a better avenue. A paper rather than a pc, if you lived off the grid. TS4 limits imagination even more than TS1 ever dared.
ETA: And five years later and TS4 kids still have no idea what tag is, or jump rope or anything. It's let's add another social media career for the single Sim. Five years and kids are as forgotten as elderly. And still no graveyard to bury Grandpa.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/958714/cinebar-custom-content-clothes-updating-links/p1
"“The World Bank says that for every 10 per cent of broadband penetration a country’s GDP grows by 1.28 per cent,” Knott-Craig says. “More tangibly, free Wi-Fi in townships allows the unemployed to look for jobs online and email CVs. Without internet access how do people find out about jobs or submit CVs?
Education is obviously the other major benefit of free Wi-Fi, as kids and older students can study online, download textbooks, and generally access information about the world. How do you learn if your teachers are on strike and you have no internet access?”
This the world we live in today and why should Sims 4 be behind the times? Maxis' older Sims games were of their time and the only way we could get some of those days back in Sims 4 is with a historical type pack.
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/10/28/growth-free-wi-fi-transforming-life-africa/
TS4 isn't behind the times, it's too limited in how my Sim should be able to live by my choice. But this is about family play and as I said they have forgotten about kids, family ties, such a funerals and graveyards, because as someone put it in a different thread this game was never meant to have any depth to it. It was a game where you just plopped down any Sim from the gallery into your Sims' house, to play for a few minutes for whatever reason then delete them. That is TS4's whole problem.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/958714/cinebar-custom-content-clothes-updating-links/p1