Because I don't like multiplayer. Especially not for a game like The Sims, which is such an iconic singleplayer franchise. Making it multiplayer would mean that it isn't The Sims anymore. It just wouldn't be the same game, the same feeling. I play The Sims to have complete control over MY OWN world and to escape reality and other people for a little while. Mixing The Sims and multiplayer would definitely make me say goodbye to the entire franchise.
The Sims is a game where the player decides personal things for a Sim (CAS, aspiration, career, skills, friendship, relationships, marriage, affair(s), pregnancy).
You don't want anyone to interfere with your decisions, would you?
Let me give you an example:
You create a Sim (Sim A) and visit your friend's town. They meet a Sim (Sim B ) there and fall in love with them. Then you exit the game. When you enter the game again Sim B is already married and has to kids with Sim C because another player decided to play that way.
Here is another example:
You want to play rags to riches style and start out poor. You have a minimalist home and your clothing style is sloppy. When you enter the game again your Sim is suddenly living in a mansion. Okay they reached their goal but you - as the player - didn't do anything.
I'd love to see a singing career in game, EA! You can't let the singing skill go to waste! My TS4 EPs: GTW, GT, CL, C&D, S, GF, IL, DU, EL, SE, CoL, HSY, GrT, HR, FR GPs: OR, SD, DO, V, P, JA, SV, RoM, DHD, MWS
It's not that I'm 100% opposed to the idea, I just don't really need or want it, so I'm not too keen on resources being devoted to this, again, with the same outcome as last time: a game that still lacks much of the depth of its predecessors. If I had a little bit more faith in this company and knew they were always, without exception, trying to deliver the very best of all worlds (like some other publishers do that I hold in very high regard), I wouldn't be too fussed about it. But this company? No, for all the "we didn't include this feature because we focused on that one"-arguments we've gotten by now, I'm no longer confident in them working on both the multiplayer and single-player experiences simultaneously and still somehow managing to deliver a great product that doesn't require a ton of DLC to feel somewhat complete.
While I generally don't mind it being either way, I think it has to do with the previous sims games. Sims has always been an escape from reality for many people and their place to do their things and control an entire world just for them.
I think people are also confused about the mechanics as time will be passing by when you are offline and you will not be able to move time faster, etc.
I think the sims franchise should stay singleplayer, perhaps add a new sims game (like sims mobile) for multiplayer. That would be cool.
I don't hate the idea of multiplayer but I just don't like the idea of having other people playing my game.
Multiplayer should be a separate game and not one that would override the main Sims game.
DLC might just be a handfull of things. The other day I was curious of how much content was in a TS2 collection I had, I think it was Pets, I counted, 106 objects (including doors, interactive objects for Sims, decor and building material objects) and 80+ new floors and walls, let alone the actual gameplay, the actual pets, and the actual interactions and animations etc. etc. I didn't count any new CAS assets. MultiPlayer won't be able to do that.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
...If you want a multi-player experience with your own created avatar where you can hang out with friends...there's MMORPG's. In fact, Mabinogi is probably very close to what you would have to have for an online Sims game (minus the combat and dungeon crawling, of course...so it would be Mabi minus 98% of the fun).
There would be quests for skills, jobs, and objects that would require you to team up with at least one other sim. You don't have to do it, but if you want to unlock that skill, get that promotion, or unlock that object for your house or CAS...you'd better force yourself to scrounge for another human to play with. And they're probably going to want to chat during the mission...or (more awkward still) want to hang out afterward. Sometimes you make a friend that way...mostly you just make that awkward acquaintance who always seems to message you when you're in the middle of something that requires your active attention.
Another social bother? Guilds. Oh, you know there would be guilds. Guilds thirsty for new players to bolster their ranks. You'd be getting random guild invites from random players who never even said two words to you before. You'll turn them down because you don't really want to be in a guild. It's awkward and kind of a pain. The same with random friend invites from players who never talked to you before. Awkward and weird and kind of annoying.
Oh, and the trolls. All the trolls. You know for a FACT that there will be trolls...And BOTTERS!! Yeah, botters. Spamming in the market, trying to sell you Simoleons for real money. Sure, they'll get banned...but they'll come back, like roaches. The botters and trolls shall be a plague amongst simmer kind.
The only thing that makes MMORPG's fun in spite of the awkward social situations is if--in spite of the awkward encounters, trolls, and botters--the core gameplay (the combat, the dungeon crawling, traversal, exploration, advancement, etc.) is fun, even when going solo (which I often do), and the majority of the community is friendly and chill. Most simmers are friendly and chill...but the gameplay in an online Sims game (especially in the modern era) would likely not be very much fun. Most of the fun in the sims is...well, making your own fun. Building your town up, creating your sims and bending their lives and world to your will, making and adding CC and mods for extra flavor, and really making the game your own.
The Sims is often (sometimes derisively) compared to virtual Barbies. Well, if that's so, then building, making sims, ruling over them and their world, and adding mods and CC is what we do after we bring the dolls home. We name them; change their clothes; cut their hair; add non-Barbie toys into the mix (some store-bought [intact and broken alike]; others crafted from odds and ends around the house) to enhance our stories; we buy off-brand fashion doll clothes and sew, knit, or crochet extra outfits for our dolls; we add stickers and marker marks of our own to official Barbie add-ons; and we make our Barbie experience our own based on our own interests, tastes, and personalities. It's the same with boys and their action figures, really. Kids never play with their toys exactly as the company that manufactured them would like, because they always, ALWAYS, add their own creations and imagination to them.
Forcing multi-player on the next Sims game would take all of the actual gameplay--the gameplay we make ourselves after we take Barbie and Optimus Prime out of their packaging--away. Instead, it would be that weird situation when your cousins come over for a cook-out and, as the night wares on, the adults decide to sit and talk outside while they send all the kids inside to play. Your cousins want to play dolls/Transformers/G.I. Joes, whatever, with you, and they go and grab your toys...but they don't play like you do. They try to dress your dolls in outfits that they don't belong in. They make Beastman Man-At-Arms' best friend when, in your world, they're bitter rivals, locked in an honor-bound feud that's lasted since they were in diapers. They use the wrong voice for EVERYONE. You get mad at your cousins. You argue, maybe it even comes to blows. You take your toys back and kick them out. You hate each other for years over it...THAT would be how an online Sims game in this day and age would end: tears and bitterness and broken friendships...because there would be no good gameplay to save it.
EA would not do an online Sims game in a way that resembles Stardew Valley's multiplayer. They would totally obliterate modding, which would take out a lot of the fun right there. Then, they would force players to play together in the same world in order to use social pressure to get people to buy a bunch of DLC junk, which will probably be mostly in loot boxes or cost you $5 for a single shirt, because microtransactions. Finally, because you've got all these people trying to play their sims together, you'll get the awkward and frustrating social drama that I described above. They might even pull a Fallout 76 and offer a subscription-based upgrade on top of this full-price AAA game with microtransactions, just to pour salt in the wound. It would not be a good time.
Also what about CC same example I have a cc couch can you see that you haven’t got it yourself see it would kill a big part of the Sims community .
This. I don't use Custom Content, and I find that most people who do use Alpha. I find Alpha CC absolutely hideous, and I don't want it in my game, so why force this onto people? Multiplayer for The Sims spells disaster.
Also what about CC same example I have a cc couch can you see that you haven’t got it yourself see it would kill a big part of the Sims community .
This. I don't use Custom Content, and I find that most people who do use Alpha. I find Alpha CC absolutely hideous, and I don't want it in my game, so why force this onto people? Multiplayer for The Sims spells disaster.
Actually, most people who use cc seem to prefer Maxis Match, judging by how much alpha cc gets bashed on the internet, no matter if on the forums, reddit or anywhere else, really (I understand that though, alpha is hideous in this game).
Also what about CC same example I have a cc couch can you see that you haven’t got it yourself see it would kill a big part of the Sims community .
This. I don't use Custom Content, and I find that most people who do use Alpha. I find Alpha CC absolutely hideous, and I don't want it in my game, so why force this onto people? Multiplayer for The Sims spells disaster.
Actually, most people who use cc seem to prefer Maxis Match, judging by how much alpha cc gets bashed on the internet, no matter if on the forums, reddit or anywhere else, really (I understand that though, alpha is hideous in this game).
Alpha CC is better suited for The Sims 3 where the Environment is realistic but the sims are stick figure potatoes
Also what about CC same example I have a cc couch can you see that you haven’t got it yourself see it would kill a big part of the Sims community .
This. I don't use Custom Content, and I find that most people who do use Alpha. I find Alpha CC absolutely hideous, and I don't want it in my game, so why force this onto people? Multiplayer for The Sims spells disaster.
Actually, most people who use cc seem to prefer Maxis Match, judging by how much alpha cc gets bashed on the internet, no matter if on the forums, reddit or anywhere else, really (I understand that though, alpha is hideous in this game).
Alpha CC is better suited for The Sims 3 where the Environment is realistic but the sims are stick figure potatoes
I used alpha cc excessively in TS3 some years ago, now I mostly just stick to the vanilla hairstyles, because alpha cc looks kinda out of place even there (is there even maxis match cc for TS3??). What I like in TS3 are skin overlays because it makes the sims, as you put it, less like stick figure potatoes. Skin overlays for TS4 though? Oh hell no. I always cringe when I see youtube videos where the sims have overlays on their skins and eyes. It looks good on female sims, but it often makes male sims look too much like kpop stars (nothing against feminine men, but it's quite unrealistic when the Chad-type of sim suddenly has these shimmering anime eyes).
It depends on the configuration, I like the option, But When I think of multiplayer games, to do it successfully, I imagine the game has to be like Elder Scrolls Online or Minecraft, Perhaps host your own server/room, a first person point of view, you can create multiple characters and your own NPCS, and switch off between them, or have a Godly perspective from above. There should be an option to play offline/Single player tho.
I don't hate the idea of multiplayer in a Sims game. It could be great. I hate the idea of EA/Maxis doing that, cuz they always use that as an excuse to limit the game to make us pay for something or to block people from pirate the game. Ok, they are right to stop people from pirating the game, but the way they do that just hurt the game... Look at Simcity and Darkspore. You were forced to play online everytime, and now that the servers are being shutdown (at least for darkspore) the game is useless.. You can't play the game without the servers up and running. And they'll probably make us pay a monthly subscription to use the online feature.
EA should look at games like Minecraft, Animal Crossing, and Stardew Valley. All of these games allow you to get the full experience in singleplayer, but also allow for multiplayer experiences as well. How awesome would it be if TS5 was like this?
Yeah. I don't have an issue with multiplayer so long as it's optional. It's just that a lot of people remember the SimCity 2013 fiasco and expect TS5 will be like that.
[Choosing who and when someone can enter your 'worlds' is not multiplayer. That is more like co-op. I think some (not you) don't understand the differences. I see here often some say but it would be fun to play with friends. Maybe for them but that would be a co-op setup and not an actual multiplayer game like WOW. A setup like co-op already exists in console versions of 2 and 3. How many are loving those still yet? Not many.
Distinction between co-op and multiplayer:
Quote:It is important to distinguish a cooperative or co-op game from a PvP(player vs. player or player vs. player). Both are multiplayer modes, but while in a PvP you compete against the other human players of the game, in a Co-Op you are collaborating with them, either to solve puzzles or problems or to end a common enemy controlled by the game itself .
Uhm, what? you do realise what that thing you quoted says, right? "Both are multiplayer modes". Co-op IS a form of multiplayer, and the quote you said even reinforces that. All multiplayer means is you're playing a game with multiple people.
Multiplayer =/= PvP. As someone who primarily played on PvE and roleplay servers, WoW isn't even necessarily PvP either, so weird example choice. Does this mean that non-PvP servers in WoW are not multiplayer by this logic? Since they are essentially co-op, as it's you and your friends or other players VS. the environment, beating NPC bosses in dungeons and raids. In WoW, at the end of the day, the core point of the game is to beat dungeon and raid bosses to get more gear. PvP is just a fun added thing for those who want to opt into it, and is by no means a necessary part of playing the game.
At the end of the day, WoW's dungeon, questing, raiding and general party play system no different to Stardew Valley at the very core of things, both are you and others interacting with the environment around you rather than competing with others directly.
It really comes across like you haven't played the games the OP mentioned, nor have you played WoW before. This is flat out the single worst take I've ever heard on my over a decade of using forums.
Edit: To add to the utter mind boggle this take left me in, PvP was initally so far from the point of WoW that you couldn't even get experience from it until I believe Cataclysm? Possibly Wrath of the Lich King? It was a good maybe at least 5 years into the games lifespan, either way. People PvP'd before then and an honor system existed, but you couldn't physically progress in the game with it, if you count levelling as progression.
Edit 2: After reading over this comment about 3 times, I think I finally understand what you're saying. You're talking about how co-op is not the same as massively multiplayer. Whilst that's true, this is not the only type of multiplayer and is in fact incredibly niche, and is typically a genre in and of itself. Even MMOs in themselves have instanced areas where you can strictly go in with just a few friends, and your example, WoW, now has server layering, which thins out the potential people you see even more.
Most online games are not massively multiplayer. Even things like League of Legends and Overwatch do not fit into this category as they create an instance of 10-12 players, albeit matchmaking can potentially place them with millions of others you don't interact with.
SimCity had server based multiplayer but not massively multiplayer, much like Minecraft, another example used. Each server only had a handful of people, and all were open. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, again, if it's optional, which it was not on launch, and if you could privatise servers so you could only play with your friends. This is how games like Diablo and Torchlight handle their multiplayer, and I couldn't imagine ANYONE calling them not multiplayer like you did with Minecraft, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.
Co-op is multiplayer though, hell, split-screen co-op is multiplayer, and that's just you and your buds hanging out on a couch. It could just be Animal Crossing-style multiplayer where you get to start up an online instance and friends join your game and you hang out, and vice versa.
We have absolutely no idea what EA mean by multiplayer yet, as it's so vague. All it means is to play with multiple people. People are making huge assumptions based on something we know nothing about yet.
Quite simply, because I don't trust them to be able to do it without sacrificing vital gameplay.
The Sims 4 is rumoured to have released the way that it is, because it was meant to be multiplayer. No toddlers, no pools, flat terrain... Imagine how many things they wouldn't have even added back if its primary advertisement was that it was multiplayer.
You can make a good simulation game and have it multiplayer, but I don't trust EA to do that.
Do you remember when in the SimCity your friends could come visit your world and place as many parks around as they wanted, effectively bankrupting your city while you were offline? As a co-op game we'd have similar difficulties, even if we could be in control of our environment. As a multiplayer, we'd be opened up to potentially playing with minors and being subject to the environment we enter. Either way you're taking away the control a lot of simmers love about the game. Not to mention, we all know how EAxis has been struggling to meet community expectations - do we really think having them focus on yet another element "adding" to gameplay will lead to game improvement? I predict it will be a never-ending nightmare with challenges that multiply as quickly as they're solved. After all the efforts they had to go through to make amendments to angry fans following the horrific launch, the blackout, and ensuing SimCity disaster, it'd be surprising to see them willingly subject themselves to another such injury - especially since they have much much farther to fall if this doesn't work. If we recall, those amendments did little to placate the angry community. I know 10 years is a long time, but I don't think it'll have been long enough to wash the foul Simcity taste out of my mouth to be wanting to try online Sims5. (My intention was not to come across harsh, but to be bluntly honest)
The Sims Online should have been a sure thing. The premise reads like a gaming executive's dream sheet. A popular, long-lived franchise loved by casual and hardcore gamers alike; a game that sells at Wal-Mart as well as it does at EB Games and developed by Will Wright, one of the most famous names in game design. The launch window picked was close to perfect: December 17, 2002, just in time for Christmas, virtually assuring millions of sales. In-house predictions called for an ongoing active subscriber base of up to 1 million people, but The Sims Online launched out of the gate and promptly fell flat. Six months after launch, Wired reported 125,000 retail copies sold and 97,000 active subscribers - not bad, but not enough to justify the game's $20 million budget. By April, 2004, their subscription rate peaked at around 55,000, and has now stagnated near 35,000.
The "sure thing" is now an "also-ran," an embarrassment to all concerned and an eyesore on the balance sheet of the world's largest game company.
I can just imagine the bigwigs at the EA offices thinking the same thing, that "TS5: The Online Multiplayer Game" will be a sure thing, but totally ignoring The Sims history. Not to mention the demographics of The Sims player community:
"Will was really interested in the social and gaming possibilities bringing the Sims audience together would offer," according to Walton. Fans of The Sims, however, didn't seem to agree. The series' core audience, in hindsight, had little interest in playing an online game at all, but if they were to play an online Sims game, they'd much rather play one that was more like the rest of the series.
It's like history repeating itself all over again with EA totally ignoring the FACT that the core base of The Sims community aren't into multiplaying for their sims. The article goes on to describe the gameplay which is largely grind-y. The sims make very little money from working, but furniture and other stuff are extremely expensive. There also seems to a be pyramid-scheme type economy where older established houses draw lots of people to their lots and make steady income because of that. However, newer players had a much harder time getting established. Anyway, that type of economy in the game produced terrible results....
Yet, as with any desperate economy, many TSO players (the majority of which were female) soon discovered that the world's oldest profession still had a place in the world's newest boomtown. Whorehouses soon sprang up, as did freelance child prostitutes and the inevitable nude patch.
"The most exciting major feature that the team wanted was player-generated custom content," says Walton. "It was also the most involved to implement and administer." Meaning EA had launched the game with no clear guidelines or tools for players wanting to creatively express themselves. Players filled the void themselves by injecting their own ideas of what might make a good game great. The result was, of course, an avalanche of explicit content and activity, and since the T-rated title had no outlet for adult content, it went everywhere.
Hardcore online gamers, raised with one eye on the game and the other on an image of 🐸🐸🐸🐸 have come to accept the "🐸🐸🐸🐸-ification" of an online community as a matter of course; the inevitable entropy of an anonymous virtual hangout. However, the majority of Sims players, new to online gaming, were unaware of the den of iniquity that awaited them. The initial reaction many had to the game wasn't that it was a massively multiplayer virtual dollhouse. It was "My god, it's full of 🐸🐸🐸🐸."
So there were no safety checks back then. I would like to know what EA would do this time to protect children playing this game (teenagers are still children!) and even adults who don't want to have anything to do with all that.
I'm posting this article and I hope everyone reads it in its entirety. It's not very long - just two short web pages. I just want people to be aware of what happened with the original The Sims Online and how "TS5: The Online Multiplayer Game" could end up. What is your take on this whole fiasco?
Also, the article didn't mention this, but I had read elsewhere that there were "Sim mafias" that formed within the online game where "groups of players would band together to 'lock up' areas, buildings, etc. in order to maximize their Simoleon profits while forcing out competition." And there were other types of online bullying that had occurred in the game.
So, I really want to know how EAxis would do things differently this time since they're so insistent on it. What makes them think that making TS5 an online multiplayer game will be successful THIS time? Especially when they will no longer have a monopoly on the life sim genre?
I have no problem with the idea of multiplayer as long as it's done properly. Personally, I think it'd be an awesome addition to the game but ONLY if it's just an added feature and selective to friends that you personally add/invite to come check out your town/house. (Similar to Animal Crossings and Stardew Valley) I would be mortified it if completely took over the Sims that we know now, but it would be a fun bonus feature to be able to dip into every now and again.
I have no problem with the idea of multiplayer as long as it's done properly. Personally, I think it'd be an awesome addition to the game but ONLY if it's just an added feature and selective to friends that you personally add/invite to come check out your town/house. (Similar to Animal Crossings and Stardew Valley) I would be mortified it if completely took over the Sims that we know now, but it would be a fun bonus feature to be able to dip into every now and again.
A LAN setup of the multiplayer game is free, but an online version over the internet is subscription based through Patreon of $9 or $15 per month.
This is the kind of multiplayer game everyone in The Sims community would most likely accept but I don't think this is what EA has in mind because this kind of format won't generate a ton of profits for them like they want.
I posted about The Sims Online because it shows the kind of multiplayer game they tend to want in an online game - where it gets competitive and induces the player to keep playing or lose whatever advancements they have made. Seriously, people should read the article. There's also a complete lack of safety measures to make sure that children and adults are protected from online predators.
The fear for most of us who don't want multiplayer hybrids is because we know the day will come (as it did often in TS4)when we read/ hear that was too hard and too expensive.
No, sorry, we couldn't give the single player side of the game a bigger world and or that activity nor those new objects and or add fully fleshed out generations of Sims or that occult you wanted, nor that idea you repeated a dozen times, because we had to spend the money on multiplayer side of the game. It's really that simple besides not wanting anyone to touch our own creations of how we built it, how we sculpted a SIm and or how we invisioned their story.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
First and foremost to me, I don't want other people in my game. The Sims is a game where (and I'm taking Sims 4's tag line here) I create, I control, and I rule. I set up the worlds, and towns how I want them, add more lots, delete ones I don't care for, add my own townies, update premades, add my sims that I personally want to control (which may end up being several different households), create new places, etc... I don't want someone, even if I know them, coming in and messing up all my work, altering things, or interfering with typical life for my sims.
Secondly, I don't trust EA to successfully pull it off, especially in a way that wouldn't negatively affect those of us who prefer single player. I see how players from other EA games complain and hear what they have to put up with and dealing with an even more problematic Sims game (because even mostly offline and single player they still have problems that haven't been fixed and probably never will be fixed) doesn't sound like fun to me. I don't trust them not to try to lure us online by using incentives or certain items that can only be obtained or goals that can only be achieved if you use multiplayer because online gaming where they can make more money off us.
Even if I had good internet, I don't want to play a multiplayer online game. I wouldn't mind a separate game that in no way touches the main Sims game beyond the ability to transfer or copy characters or lots. I actually think to satisfy desires from both EA and players who want to go multiplayer that they should make a whole new game just for that, but leave the main series single player offline (and bring back physical copies and no ties to Origin while we're at it).
I feel like if they do add a multiplayer to the sims 5 it need to be optional, and give the players the ability to run their own servers. I don;t want to play with a bunch of strangers, but if me and my friends could have our own little private world I might play it. Single Player has to be in the game I feel though. And it need to be the main focus. The game should come out single player first and update a multiplayer later once they make sure the single player game is what it should be on release.
Because Sims community hates anyone who is different and putting all those toxic people in the web space for prolonged periods of time will turn the space into a warzone. Ever see the game VR chat? Yeah Sims would just be another online dating and trolling site which people can join for free elsewhere. Sims online games have never done well. While games like Animal Crossing and Second Life have good positive experience in the market. You think people with cheap laptops spend money on good internet too are highly mistaken. Many people are having disconnecting issues with Twitch especially with the isolation. Another pandemic happens, then Simmers won't be able to play the game.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
@Scorbe the reasons of why players don't want a multiplayer TS5 have been stated clearly and with much effort to explain why they fear a hybrid and or why they don't want to play where other players can change things in their games. It is not because 'The Sims Community hates anyone who is different'.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
Comments
You don't want anyone to interfere with your decisions, would you?
Let me give you an example:
You create a Sim (Sim A) and visit your friend's town. They meet a Sim (Sim B ) there and fall in love with them. Then you exit the game. When you enter the game again Sim B is already married and has to kids with Sim C because another player decided to play that way.
Here is another example:
You want to play rags to riches style and start out poor. You have a minimalist home and your clothing style is sloppy. When you enter the game again your Sim is suddenly living in a mansion. Okay they reached their goal but you - as the player - didn't do anything.
Multiplayer should be a separate game and not one that would override the main Sims game.
Sims has always been an escape from reality for many people and their place to do their things and control an entire world just for them.
I think people are also confused about the mechanics as time will be passing by when you are offline and you will not be able to move time faster, etc.
I think the sims franchise should stay singleplayer, perhaps add a new sims game (like sims mobile) for multiplayer. That would be cool.
DLC might just be a handfull of things. The other day I was curious of how much content was in a TS2 collection I had, I think it was Pets, I counted, 106 objects (including doors, interactive objects for Sims, decor and building material objects) and 80+ new floors and walls, let alone the actual gameplay, the actual pets, and the actual interactions and animations etc. etc. I didn't count any new CAS assets. MultiPlayer won't be able to do that.
EA would not do an online Sims game in a way that resembles Stardew Valley's multiplayer. They would totally obliterate modding, which would take out a lot of the fun right there. Then, they would force players to play together in the same world in order to use social pressure to get people to buy a bunch of DLC junk, which will probably be mostly in loot boxes or cost you $5 for a single shirt, because microtransactions. Finally, because you've got all these people trying to play their sims together, you'll get the awkward and frustrating social drama that I described above. They might even pull a Fallout 76 and offer a subscription-based upgrade on top of this full-price AAA game with microtransactions, just to pour salt in the wound. It would not be a good time.
This. I don't use Custom Content, and I find that most people who do use Alpha. I find Alpha CC absolutely hideous, and I don't want it in my game, so why force this onto people? Multiplayer for The Sims spells disaster.
Actually, most people who use cc seem to prefer Maxis Match, judging by how much alpha cc gets bashed on the internet, no matter if on the forums, reddit or anywhere else, really (I understand that though, alpha is hideous in this game).
I like to build stuff
Alpha CC is better suited for The Sims 3 where the Environment is realistic but the sims are stick figure potatoes
I used alpha cc excessively in TS3 some years ago, now I mostly just stick to the vanilla hairstyles, because alpha cc looks kinda out of place even there (is there even maxis match cc for TS3??). What I like in TS3 are skin overlays because it makes the sims, as you put it, less like stick figure potatoes. Skin overlays for TS4 though? Oh hell no. I always cringe when I see youtube videos where the sims have overlays on their skins and eyes. It looks good on female sims, but it often makes male sims look too much like kpop stars (nothing against feminine men, but it's quite unrealistic when the Chad-type of sim suddenly has these shimmering anime eyes).
I like to build stuff
My Mood:
Uhm, what? you do realise what that thing you quoted says, right? "Both are multiplayer modes". Co-op IS a form of multiplayer, and the quote you said even reinforces that. All multiplayer means is you're playing a game with multiple people.
Multiplayer =/= PvP. As someone who primarily played on PvE and roleplay servers, WoW isn't even necessarily PvP either, so weird example choice. Does this mean that non-PvP servers in WoW are not multiplayer by this logic? Since they are essentially co-op, as it's you and your friends or other players VS. the environment, beating NPC bosses in dungeons and raids. In WoW, at the end of the day, the core point of the game is to beat dungeon and raid bosses to get more gear. PvP is just a fun added thing for those who want to opt into it, and is by no means a necessary part of playing the game.
At the end of the day, WoW's dungeon, questing, raiding and general party play system no different to Stardew Valley at the very core of things, both are you and others interacting with the environment around you rather than competing with others directly.
It really comes across like you haven't played the games the OP mentioned, nor have you played WoW before. This is flat out the single worst take I've ever heard on my over a decade of using forums.
Edit: To add to the utter mind boggle this take left me in, PvP was initally so far from the point of WoW that you couldn't even get experience from it until I believe Cataclysm? Possibly Wrath of the Lich King? It was a good maybe at least 5 years into the games lifespan, either way. People PvP'd before then and an honor system existed, but you couldn't physically progress in the game with it, if you count levelling as progression.
Edit 2: After reading over this comment about 3 times, I think I finally understand what you're saying. You're talking about how co-op is not the same as massively multiplayer. Whilst that's true, this is not the only type of multiplayer and is in fact incredibly niche, and is typically a genre in and of itself. Even MMOs in themselves have instanced areas where you can strictly go in with just a few friends, and your example, WoW, now has server layering, which thins out the potential people you see even more.
Most online games are not massively multiplayer. Even things like League of Legends and Overwatch do not fit into this category as they create an instance of 10-12 players, albeit matchmaking can potentially place them with millions of others you don't interact with.
SimCity had server based multiplayer but not massively multiplayer, much like Minecraft, another example used. Each server only had a handful of people, and all were open. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, again, if it's optional, which it was not on launch, and if you could privatise servers so you could only play with your friends. This is how games like Diablo and Torchlight handle their multiplayer, and I couldn't imagine ANYONE calling them not multiplayer like you did with Minecraft, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.
Co-op is multiplayer though, hell, split-screen co-op is multiplayer, and that's just you and your buds hanging out on a couch. It could just be Animal Crossing-style multiplayer where you get to start up an online instance and friends join your game and you hang out, and vice versa.
We have absolutely no idea what EA mean by multiplayer yet, as it's so vague. All it means is to play with multiple people. People are making huge assumptions based on something we know nothing about yet.
Magnezone, the lover of Calientes, Lotharios, Landgraabs and Curiouses everywhere.
The Sims 4 is rumoured to have released the way that it is, because it was meant to be multiplayer. No toddlers, no pools, flat terrain... Imagine how many things they wouldn't have even added back if its primary advertisement was that it was multiplayer.
You can make a good simulation game and have it multiplayer, but I don't trust EA to do that.
As a co-op game we'd have similar difficulties, even if we could be in control of our environment. As a multiplayer, we'd be opened up to potentially playing with minors and being subject to the environment we enter. Either way you're taking away the control a lot of simmers love about the game.
Not to mention, we all know how EAxis has been struggling to meet community expectations - do we really think having them focus on yet another element "adding" to gameplay will lead to game improvement? I predict it will be a never-ending nightmare with challenges that multiply as quickly as they're solved. After all the efforts they had to go through to make amendments to angry fans following the horrific launch, the blackout, and ensuing SimCity disaster, it'd be surprising to see them willingly subject themselves to another such injury - especially since they have much much farther to fall if this doesn't work. If we recall, those amendments did little to placate the angry community. I know 10 years is a long time, but I don't think it'll have been long enough to wash the foul Simcity taste out of my mouth to be wanting to try online Sims5.
(My intention was not to come across harsh, but to be bluntly honest)
Some important excerpts to point out:
I can just imagine the bigwigs at the EA offices thinking the same thing, that "TS5: The Online Multiplayer Game" will be a sure thing, but totally ignoring The Sims history. Not to mention the demographics of The Sims player community:
It's like history repeating itself all over again with EA totally ignoring the FACT that the core base of The Sims community aren't into multiplaying for their sims. The article goes on to describe the gameplay which is largely grind-y. The sims make very little money from working, but furniture and other stuff are extremely expensive. There also seems to a be pyramid-scheme type economy where older established houses draw lots of people to their lots and make steady income because of that. However, newer players had a much harder time getting established. Anyway, that type of economy in the game produced terrible results....
So there were no safety checks back then. I would like to know what EA would do this time to protect children playing this game (teenagers are still children!) and even adults who don't want to have anything to do with all that.
I'm posting this article and I hope everyone reads it in its entirety. It's not very long - just two short web pages. I just want people to be aware of what happened with the original The Sims Online and how "TS5: The Online Multiplayer Game" could end up. What is your take on this whole fiasco?
Also, the article didn't mention this, but I had read elsewhere that there were "Sim mafias" that formed within the online game where "groups of players would band together to 'lock up' areas, buildings, etc. in order to maximize their Simoleon profits while forcing out competition." And there were other types of online bullying that had occurred in the game.
So, I really want to know how EAxis would do things differently this time since they're so insistent on it. What makes them think that making TS5 an online multiplayer game will be successful THIS time? Especially when they will no longer have a monopoly on the life sim genre?
There's already a mod to make TS4 a multiplayer game. If you have TS4, you can do this now!
A LAN setup of the multiplayer game is free, but an online version over the internet is subscription based through Patreon of $9 or $15 per month.
This is the kind of multiplayer game everyone in The Sims community would most likely accept but I don't think this is what EA has in mind because this kind of format won't generate a ton of profits for them like they want.
I posted about The Sims Online because it shows the kind of multiplayer game they tend to want in an online game - where it gets competitive and induces the player to keep playing or lose whatever advancements they have made. Seriously, people should read the article. There's also a complete lack of safety measures to make sure that children and adults are protected from online predators.
No, sorry, we couldn't give the single player side of the game a bigger world and or that activity nor those new objects and or add fully fleshed out generations of Sims or that occult you wanted, nor that idea you repeated a dozen times, because we had to spend the money on multiplayer side of the game. It's really that simple besides not wanting anyone to touch our own creations of how we built it, how we sculpted a SIm and or how we invisioned their story.
Secondly, I don't trust EA to successfully pull it off, especially in a way that wouldn't negatively affect those of us who prefer single player. I see how players from other EA games complain and hear what they have to put up with and dealing with an even more problematic Sims game (because even mostly offline and single player they still have problems that haven't been fixed and probably never will be fixed) doesn't sound like fun to me. I don't trust them not to try to lure us online by using incentives or certain items that can only be obtained or goals that can only be achieved if you use multiplayer because online gaming where they can make more money off us.
Even if I had good internet, I don't want to play a multiplayer online game. I wouldn't mind a separate game that in no way touches the main Sims game beyond the ability to transfer or copy characters or lots. I actually think to satisfy desires from both EA and players who want to go multiplayer that they should make a whole new game just for that, but leave the main series single player offline (and bring back physical copies and no ties to Origin while we're at it).