Somebody mentioned references in the code to horses, right? (Much more recent than the initial one patched way before C&D) So I think we'll get them sooner or later.
The transportation category could be a hint to cars (it's currently a very empty category), but I feel like they'd been hinting at cars for years, so IDK if this actually means anything
Don't manhandle the urchin. He's not for sale. FIND YOUR OWN! - Xenon the Antiquarian, Dragon Age II
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
The problem with doing period worlds in TS4 is that they would have to code the Sims from that world to never leave that world. It would really tick me off to have a historical or futuristic Sim wandering around the library in Willow Creek. They would be so out of place.
I would love to see different time periods, but the way TS4 is set up may not make that possible.
I can see another story driven Gamepack coming out in 2020.
I think you're right, given the article quoted. They've kicked around an apocalyptic pack a bit - I don't think we've ever had that, and it could be interesting as a goal-driven world within the game. (That is, it doesn't affect the rest of the game, but if you travel to the world, you're in the story.)
As a rule, I don't like game-mandated goals, but I think it might be fun to have a Sim land in a world with nothing, and have to forage for shelter and food. Nothing too difficult or violent (please, no zombies - they're just gross), but enough challenge that you risk starvation or death from exposure if your Sim decides to do nothing but play with his phone all day.
The only surprise I'd like to see in 2020 is the bug population greatly decreased in number and frequency. Now that would be a surprise as well as being something totally unexpected. I mean, when has a patch or update not caused problems, when has any of the thirty-plus packs not had issues and bugs? It hasn't happened. Ever. Not even once in five years. And now that 2020 is just around the corner, the gurus are getting all excited about the wonderful, exciting, unexpected and surprising new content they have in store for us? Sorry but I am not going to jump up and down and get my hopes up for nothing. The teams rushed to release the most popular themed packs so they can spend more time and resources on the future content they have chosen for us. Enjoy this latest stuff pack we have been voting on, because I have a feeling it will be the last bit of input we will have on new packs of any kind. Now that Seasons, Cats and Dogs, Vampires, IL, RoM, DU, and GF have been released, and these being the 'lighthouse' packs, the direction of the game is in limbo now, and we have no idea in which direction the game will go. I like new ideas that bring new gameplay and improve the game, but I'd also like to feel that what we want isn't going to be swept aside in their rush to dazzle us with content that is too extreme, or not done well.
Sims4 has millions of players and every one of us has different ideas about what should be in the game, about which features add to our personal gaming experience. We don't always agree, and that's okay. But the one thing we should agree on, is the fact this game has unresolved issues that need to be taken care of. Adding new content won't fix these bugs and glitches. Adding new content on top of buggy content isn't a smart move to make when the list of current bugs seems to be growing, rather than shrinking after the last two patches. And that is where my focus is even as the gurus attempt to divert my attention, while hoping I won't care about the bugs when shiny new content is revealed. Well, I am not going to speculate about what 'might' be coming in 2020, because I'm dealing with bugs that are four years old. And a good many of the newer bugs I am dealing with currently, came about in 2019. I'm too busy looking for solutions and fixes to get excited about future packs. If EA believes I am going to pay for the privilige of adding more bugs and broken features to an already unstable game.....Nope, it isn't happening. I did not purchase RoM or DU, and the money I could have spent on Sims4 went to supporting the modding community instead.
I think there are more than enough topics left that wouldn't be a surprise. I really want horses and packs that improve on Romance and personality in general. I want to see a Generations themed pack (Midlife-Crisis, bettter babies, prom and wedding themed stuff).
We've had all of this in previous Sims games so I'm far from a point where I could say I'd just love to be surprised by entirely new content when the game is still lacking a lot of the cool and in depth stuff from previous iterations.
To be completely honest, I'm getting anxious when EA talks about adding new FUN stuff for the game. In most times, it hasn't been fun for me when they did something completely new (e. g. Strangerville, talking toilets).
I'm not against new stuff, but I hope we'll be not be restricted to EAs vision of completely new fun stuff for the game I have loved for almost twenty years.
Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
We already had a pack that went into the future for the sims 3 so hopefully they do the opposite for this game. The sims 4 is becoming too modern for my taste with all of the freelance jobs and influencer jobs they have created. i want my sims to do something other than use their phones.
Agree. I can understand having some of those jobs to keep the game in touch with the times. But it seems like the vast majority of the jobs are social media related in some way. (And don't even get me started on "e-sports" as a university athletic event, as though any reputable university would have any such thing.)
I was also noticing the other day that one of my sims who is supposed to be a more retiring, intellectual, loner sim, kept taking selfies every five seconds if I left her alone, or sometimes even when she had a full queue. Like, it's fine to have that animation if you want to create a more vapid, self-obsessed Sim. But for the most part I intentionally create Sims that are NOT supposed to be basic, Instagram-obsessed, Kardashian-wannabes. So it would be nice if their autonomous actions fit in better with their supposed personality traits.
Maybe we do just live in stupid times... but I don't feel like the sims team had to take it to quite this extreme.
I think horses should be integrated into an Ancient Rome pack with arena horse races, an antique Italian world with columns and temples, vintage nectar making and togas & tunicas. That would be much more interesting than a modern farming pack.
People keep saying this, but it's really not true at all. In TS2 and TS3, I made several farms, and by far the best ones were 30x40 or 40x40. That's with a 4-5 bedroom farmhouse, a barn, plants, fruit trees, chickens, cows, and bees. You just have to use the space efficiently, but honestly, you really don't want anything over maybe 40x50 at the largest. Otherwise, the temptation is going to be to put in way too many plants (i.e., more than you can realistically keep healthy, even with a large family with lots of children).
Granted, with respect to horses, the difference is that TS3 was an open world, and you do need space to ride. But I think with open neighborhoods, if the neighborhood is designed decently, you could still get a lot of use out of horses.
We already had a pack that went into the future for the sims 3 so hopefully they do the opposite for this game. The sims 4 is becoming too modern for my taste with all of the freelance jobs and influencer jobs they have created. i want my sims to do something other than use their phones.
Agree. I can understand having some of those jobs to keep the game in touch with the times. But it seems like the vast majority of the jobs are social media related in some way. (And don't even get me started on "e-sports" as a university athletic event, as though any reputable university would have any such thing.)
That aside, I kinda agree that there's a bit too much emphasis on Tech careers. I was glad to get the law and education careers in Discover University, and I hope that they can expand future career tracks to cover more options.
I think Horses will be the next GamePack (the first pack of 2020).
I think what this game needs the most at the moment (in terms of packs, not free updates) is a Generations type of pack. Family gameplay has been severely neglected and just Parenthood doesn't cut it.
As a Generations Pre-Patch update they can add the revamped babies we have been asking for for ages.
When it comes to free updates I would love to see cars finally being added into the game, personalities being revamped, etc. (even though I think everything under the hood (the core game) will never get fixed/revamped sadly.
Looking at the routing of the new bikes I would rather not have a horses pack (unless you want to ride in your living room).
The problem with doing period worlds in TS4 is that they would have to code the Sims from that world to never leave that world. It would really tick me off to have a historical or futuristic Sim wandering around the library in Willow Creek. They would be so out of place.
I would love to see different time periods, but the way TS4 is set up may not make that possible.
Yeah if they set up a world set in a different time period I would just end up being annoyed that I cant make everything else match that time period. I've tried doing period-play before and i just get nitpicky about what shouldn't be there lol San Myshuno and Del Sol Valley really throw things off too cause theres no real way to de-modernize them with mods. Their whole modern-city schtick is impossible to get rid of. And they're similarly impossible to ignore unless you uninstall the packs, which is no bueno cause I need the reputation and fame system from Get Famous lol
What we really really need is some kind of options to switch out the look of the fake crap surrounding everything
My speculations on hints for future content:
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
Eh, I thought Island Living was good, though more of a GP. The world, Sulani, is excellent. I think it could have been a stronger pack if it included hotels or a small area specifically for vacationers. I actually liked getting a livable beach world. I also think that since I'm not that interested in playable mermaids, there might have been a chunk of content that just didn't appeal to me.
A lot of people complained about CL and I thought that was a great EP when I started playing TS4.
Anyway, I think that getting away from predictable content is mostly a good idea. It doesn't mean that there won't be demand. If in doubt, keep polling the community. I think what we're seeing is that it's a big community with some very different styles of players. I'm a player with my own style and I sometimes shift between a few ways of playing to different degrees.
Some of the stuff that I want is getting requested more often so I hope that we'll see it. I'm ok with being surprised as well.
I've also enjoyed Island Living, and agree with the GP statement. The world of Sulani is one of my favorites, and I love the beach lots as well. I love the CAS and Build/Buy, new careers, lot traits, and the addition of mermaids (though I'm not a major occult player), but I do believe that they could've and should've been fleshed out more.
Anyway, as for the future unexpected and surprising content, I'm looking forward to whatever is coming. I'm ready for something new.
I never was a fan of Strangerville, but that was more of a lack of appeal thing. Otherwise, I enjoyed the newness to it; it wasn't something we had seen before.
I looked through the list of schools that are part of that e-sports association, and... I stand by my original statement.
Not to be hateful, but there are no Tier 1, and it looks like not even Tier 2, schools on the list. Maybe a few Tier 3. It's... just not something I would associate with an elite school. Which is fine, and I don't want to dismiss the value of those programs... and that's my bad, for using the word "reputable" instead of "elite" or "prestigious", as I'm sure these are fine schools. But within the Sims Universe, Britechester and Foxbury seem to be intended to represent the Harvard/MIT/Oxford/Cambridge end of the spectrum. So, if the idea is that e-sports are supposed to reflect what's current/modern in the real world, in a particular type of setting, then they really missed the mark.
And if it's not intended to reflect the real world, I'm not sure what the point of it even is. Were tons of simmers clamoring for e-sports at university? I doubt it. Rather, I suspect that it's a type of wish fulfillment for some of the developers, who maybe wish they could have played e-sports in school? I'm sure that's part of the appeal of being a game developer, creating worlds that you would want to live in or be part of, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's going to appeal to your customer base.
I looked through the list of schools that are part of that e-sports association, and... I stand by my original statement.
Not to be hateful, but there are no Tier 1, and it looks like not even Tier 2, schools on the list. Maybe a few Tier 3. It's... just not something I would associate with an elite school. Which is fine, and I don't want to dismiss the value of those programs... and that's my bad, for using the word "reputable" instead of "elite" or "prestigious", as I'm sure these are fine schools. But within the Sims Universe, Britechester and Foxbury seem to be intended to represent the Harvard/MIT/Oxford/Cambridge end of the spectrum. So, if the idea is that e-sports are supposed to reflect what's current/modern in the real world, in a particular type of setting, then they really missed the mark.
And University of Miami Ohio is actually a public Ivy League school.
My point being that while I also raised an eyebrow at e-sports when I first saw it, I also didn't dismiss it as being wish fulfillment, because I know e-sports are a thing and they're becoming more of a thing. So while we never looked into e-sports when deciding where my daughter would go to college (she just started last year), I'm also not surprised that real world colleges have them. Including prestigious ones.
To get the thread back on track, what ideas do people have for themes they haven't done before?
How about a fully off-the-grid pack? We got the elements in the patch before IL, but there are still a lot of things that are lacking for off-the-grid game play. (Could include horses, which we've had before, but the theme of the pack would be new.)
Several people mentioned a theme park - I don't think we've had that yet?
To get the thread back on track, what ideas do people have for themes they haven't done before?
How about a fully off-the-grid pack? We got the elements in the patch before IL, but there are still a lot of things that are lacking for off-the-grid game play. (Could include horses, which we've had before, but the theme of the pack would be new.)
Several people mentioned a theme park - I don't think we've had that yet?
What else?
the off the grid elements would be perfect in a country living/farming expansion with solar panels, water wells, wind mills, etc
I'm with @Jordan061102. Let's see a pack that adds more to our Sims' personalities, romanctic interactions, and adds more whims. I could get a little excited about that kind of pack. Since these have not been included in any updates or patches perhaps we'll have to spend a few bucks to make it happen.
"We're finally at that place where I'm not convinced they can guess our next couple of packs anymore." well, we should... I'm still heavily expecting Hobbies, Generations, Farming, etc... They keep talking like they had a list of things that they need to add checkmarks to little boxes, and that they filled that list, but come on... There's a lot of other packs we still want and need.
Farming and horses seem to be on a lot of wishlists so I expect those to turn up. Maybe a transportation gamepack with cars, motorcycles and horses, including garages and stables. That would make a lot of people happy. As cars are requested a lot too.
I don’t know if I would buy farming as a stand alone pack but maybe it could be combined with time travel? Instead of 4 different seasons we could get 4 different era’s. I would personally enjoy the middle ages, the victorian age, a futuristic space age and something apocalyptic. I would buy such an expansion pack in a second. And please with an upgraded portrait painting option. I would love to make classic portraits of my sims with beautiful classic frames. With maybe holographic pictures for the futuristic age?
Happy Haunts didn’t make as the new stuff pack but it had a lot of fans. I suspect an occult pack to show up. Maybe with werewolves, zombies and fairies? Together with a psychic type career and a swamp world pretty please.
I would absolutely go for a romance type game pack. Bring back crushes and heart farting! I really liked that sims weren’t attracted to everybody but had their own prefferences, it made them more unique. And please more wedding content! That would another pack I would buy.
I’m on a rant here so I might as well continue. Please something like generations. Including more elder and retro content (CAS, build and buy). I also would like a nostalgic emotion (for elders) combined with photo albums and stories from the old days. Please bring back favourites (colours, music and food). Make my sims unique!
Last one, I promise! More vacation destinations! Maybe something like a city: Paris or Tokyo? Include the option to buy a holiday home! Maybe all of this is more what I hope for than what I expect. Hope some Guru will read this :smiley: If none of this will happen in 2020 then there’s always 2021.
Comments
The transportation category could be a hint to cars (it's currently a very empty category), but I feel like they'd been hinting at cars for years, so IDK if this actually means anything
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
I would love to see different time periods, but the way TS4 is set up may not make that possible.
I think you're right, given the article quoted. They've kicked around an apocalyptic pack a bit - I don't think we've ever had that, and it could be interesting as a goal-driven world within the game. (That is, it doesn't affect the rest of the game, but if you travel to the world, you're in the story.)
As a rule, I don't like game-mandated goals, but I think it might be fun to have a Sim land in a world with nothing, and have to forage for shelter and food. Nothing too difficult or violent (please, no zombies - they're just gross), but enough challenge that you risk starvation or death from exposure if your Sim decides to do nothing but play with his phone all day.
Sims4 has millions of players and every one of us has different ideas about what should be in the game, about which features add to our personal gaming experience. We don't always agree, and that's okay. But the one thing we should agree on, is the fact this game has unresolved issues that need to be taken care of. Adding new content won't fix these bugs and glitches. Adding new content on top of buggy content isn't a smart move to make when the list of current bugs seems to be growing, rather than shrinking after the last two patches. And that is where my focus is even as the gurus attempt to divert my attention, while hoping I won't care about the bugs when shiny new content is revealed. Well, I am not going to speculate about what 'might' be coming in 2020, because I'm dealing with bugs that are four years old. And a good many of the newer bugs I am dealing with currently, came about in 2019. I'm too busy looking for solutions and fixes to get excited about future packs. If EA believes I am going to pay for the privilige of adding more bugs and broken features to an already unstable game.....Nope, it isn't happening. I did not purchase RoM or DU, and the money I could have spent on Sims4 went to supporting the modding community instead.
We've had all of this in previous Sims games so I'm far from a point where I could say I'd just love to be surprised by entirely new content when the game is still lacking a lot of the cool and in depth stuff from previous iterations.
To be completely honest, I'm getting anxious when EA talks about adding new FUN stuff for the game. In most times, it hasn't been fun for me when they did something completely new (e. g. Strangerville, talking toilets).
I'm not against new stuff, but I hope we'll be not be restricted to EAs vision of completely new fun stuff for the game I have loved for almost twenty years.
Agree. I can understand having some of those jobs to keep the game in touch with the times. But it seems like the vast majority of the jobs are social media related in some way. (And don't even get me started on "e-sports" as a university athletic event, as though any reputable university would have any such thing.)
I was also noticing the other day that one of my sims who is supposed to be a more retiring, intellectual, loner sim, kept taking selfies every five seconds if I left her alone, or sometimes even when she had a full queue. Like, it's fine to have that animation if you want to create a more vapid, self-obsessed Sim. But for the most part I intentionally create Sims that are NOT supposed to be basic, Instagram-obsessed, Kardashian-wannabes. So it would be nice if their autonomous actions fit in better with their supposed personality traits.
Maybe we do just live in stupid times... but I don't feel like the sims team had to take it to quite this extreme.
I can't even tell you how much I would love this.
People keep saying this, but it's really not true at all. In TS2 and TS3, I made several farms, and by far the best ones were 30x40 or 40x40. That's with a 4-5 bedroom farmhouse, a barn, plants, fruit trees, chickens, cows, and bees. You just have to use the space efficiently, but honestly, you really don't want anything over maybe 40x50 at the largest. Otherwise, the temptation is going to be to put in way too many plants (i.e., more than you can realistically keep healthy, even with a large family with lots of children).
Granted, with respect to horses, the difference is that TS3 was an open world, and you do need space to ride. But I think with open neighborhoods, if the neighborhood is designed decently, you could still get a lot of use out of horses.
https://www.gamedesigning.org/schools/varsity-esports/
That aside, I kinda agree that there's a bit too much emphasis on Tech careers. I was glad to get the law and education careers in Discover University, and I hope that they can expand future career tracks to cover more options.
... I'd actually like this ... ❤️
Yeah if they set up a world set in a different time period I would just end up being annoyed that I cant make everything else match that time period. I've tried doing period-play before and i just get nitpicky about what shouldn't be there lol San Myshuno and Del Sol Valley really throw things off too cause theres no real way to de-modernize them with mods. Their whole modern-city schtick is impossible to get rid of. And they're similarly impossible to ignore unless you uninstall the packs, which is no bueno cause I need the reputation and fame system from Get Famous lol
What we really really need is some kind of options to switch out the look of the fake crap surrounding everything
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
I've also enjoyed Island Living, and agree with the GP statement. The world of Sulani is one of my favorites, and I love the beach lots as well. I love the CAS and Build/Buy, new careers, lot traits, and the addition of mermaids (though I'm not a major occult player), but I do believe that they could've and should've been fleshed out more.
Anyway, as for the future unexpected and surprising content, I'm looking forward to whatever is coming. I'm ready for something new.
I never was a fan of Strangerville, but that was more of a lack of appeal thing. Otherwise, I enjoyed the newness to it; it wasn't something we had seen before.
I looked through the list of schools that are part of that e-sports association, and... I stand by my original statement.
Not to be hateful, but there are no Tier 1, and it looks like not even Tier 2, schools on the list. Maybe a few Tier 3. It's... just not something I would associate with an elite school. Which is fine, and I don't want to dismiss the value of those programs... and that's my bad, for using the word "reputable" instead of "elite" or "prestigious", as I'm sure these are fine schools. But within the Sims Universe, Britechester and Foxbury seem to be intended to represent the Harvard/MIT/Oxford/Cambridge end of the spectrum. So, if the idea is that e-sports are supposed to reflect what's current/modern in the real world, in a particular type of setting, then they really missed the mark.
And if it's not intended to reflect the real world, I'm not sure what the point of it even is. Were tons of simmers clamoring for e-sports at university? I doubt it. Rather, I suspect that it's a type of wish fulfillment for some of the developers, who maybe wish they could have played e-sports in school? I'm sure that's part of the appeal of being a game developer, creating worlds that you would want to live in or be part of, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's going to appeal to your customer base.
No doubt we'll get farming too, but I really don't think that would surprise people, lol.
http://gamelab.mit.edu/tag/esports/
Because of course MIT is going to have esports
Also:
https://britishesports.org/news/oxford-and-cambridge-universities-prepare-to-face-off-in-esports-varsity-event-news/
And University of Miami Ohio is actually a public Ivy League school.
My point being that while I also raised an eyebrow at e-sports when I first saw it, I also didn't dismiss it as being wish fulfillment, because I know e-sports are a thing and they're becoming more of a thing. So while we never looked into e-sports when deciding where my daughter would go to college (she just started last year), I'm also not surprised that real world colleges have them. Including prestigious ones.
Edit to add, just for good measure:
https://thehub.college.harvard.edu/organization/harvard-college-esports-association
How about a fully off-the-grid pack? We got the elements in the patch before IL, but there are still a lot of things that are lacking for off-the-grid game play. (Could include horses, which we've had before, but the theme of the pack would be new.)
Several people mentioned a theme park - I don't think we've had that yet?
What else?
the off the grid elements would be perfect in a country living/farming expansion with solar panels, water wells, wind mills, etc
I don’t know if I would buy farming as a stand alone pack but maybe it could be combined with time travel? Instead of 4 different seasons we could get 4 different era’s. I would personally enjoy the middle ages, the victorian age, a futuristic space age and something apocalyptic. I would buy such an expansion pack in a second. And please with an upgraded portrait painting option. I would love to make classic portraits of my sims with beautiful classic frames. With maybe holographic pictures for the futuristic age?
Happy Haunts didn’t make as the new stuff pack but it had a lot of fans. I suspect an occult pack to show up. Maybe with werewolves, zombies and fairies? Together with a psychic type career and a swamp world pretty please.
I would absolutely go for a romance type game pack. Bring back crushes and heart farting! I really liked that sims weren’t attracted to everybody but had their own prefferences, it made them more unique. And please more wedding content! That would another pack I would buy.
I’m on a rant here so I might as well continue. Please something like generations. Including more elder and retro content (CAS, build and buy). I also would like a nostalgic emotion (for elders) combined with photo albums and stories from the old days. Please bring back favourites (colours, music and food). Make my sims unique!
Last one, I promise! More vacation destinations! Maybe something like a city: Paris or Tokyo? Include the option to buy a holiday home! Maybe all of this is more what I hope for than what I expect. Hope some Guru will read this :smiley: If none of this will happen in 2020 then there’s always 2021.