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When are you guys going to let players join each others game?

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  • friendlysimmersfriendlysimmers Posts: 7,542 Member
    sorry op but as grumpy cat would say OaC9FwI.jpg no keep the sims5 offline
    If you went the sims5 to remain offline feel free to sign this petition http://chng.it/gtfHPhHK please note that it is also to keep the gallery



    Repose en paix mamie tu va me manquer :

    1923-2016 mamie :'(
  • annaliese39annaliese39 Posts: 2,797 Member
    edited May 2020
    The last thing I want is other people intruding on the world I have created for my sims. It's bad enough putting up with them in the real world! :D Don't get me wrong, I love our community and being a part of the gallery and forums, but I don't think I would appreciate anything beyond that. I prefer to create my own stories and I don't want anything to detract from the focus on giving us the best possible gameplay to do that.
  • APottsAPotts Posts: 2,448 Member
    I have been gaming for over 30 years and I am single player for life. I really don't like it when MP is added to single player games. In my opinion, it takes away from the single player experience in many cases, and in some cases the game studio will put great single player games on the back burner to create a halfhearted MP game. EA/BioWare's Anthem comes to mind. Fallout 76 is another good example. SP fans still don't have Fallout 5 or DA4, so we are forced to look elsewhere for our SP fix, some of us might not bother looking back.

    If the next Sims has a big online/MP aspect to it, I simply won't buy it. Since day one, Sims 4 has been dumbed down and spread thin, apparently, because they don't have the time and/or budget, just imagine if they start needing to spread that time/budget even thinner in order to add to the MP aspect. What happens when instead of voting on items for the next stuff pack we are forced to vote on Single Player vs Multiplayer additions?

    I don't know. I suppose I am bias, and probably over thinking things, but I hope Sims 5 has the open world of Sims 3, with the fun and excitement of Sims 2, and the graphics of Sims 4. That is all I really need. You can keep the online/MP junk.
  • SimburianSimburian Posts: 6,906 Member
    I don't even like it when Maxis moves in Sims from the Gallery into my houses. They get evicted sharpish. I expect that would happen a lot in an online version.

    A sort of Plopsy version might work though, if you could buy and sell your goods to other players with your Sims' simoleons.
  • kwanzaabotkwanzaabot Posts: 2,440 Member
    Online multiplayer would kill the modding and CC-using community STONE DEAD.

    Can't visit somebody's game if they have CC you don't. Can't visit if they use mods you don't.

    Modding and CC is the only reason these games have the longevity they have.
    If Sims 4 console is still alive in 5 years, then we'll talk.
    wJbomAo.png
  • SimsophoniqueSimsophonique Posts: 1,410 Member
    :# No.
    Follow and read Miss V Detective (ts3 story)
    on wordpress: thesimsophonique.wp.com / on dreamwidth: simsophonique.dreamwidth.org
    Follow me on tumblr (sims only)
    simsophonique.tumblr.com (please no triggers I am autistic asperger)
  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    edited May 2020
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.
    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.
  • kwanzaabotkwanzaabot Posts: 2,440 Member
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.

    Yep. Family play simply does. not. work. online.
    Looking at Sims 4's early development, I think there's a reason there was such a focus on young adults, bars, and partying.


    The most I would want for a future Sims game (and honestly could work in TS4) is an improved Gallery.
    Have it work like the Sporepedia in Spore--it was a flawed game yes, but I'm amazed Maxis has never gone back to that well since. So many good ideas that could work in The Sims to solve common issues (cough, procedural animation, cough)

    Imagine if instead of randomly-generating townies, the game pulled them from the Gallery. And if you don't like the townies they create, then don't interact with them. If you don't become friends/lovers with them, they simply vanish at the end of your play session, and the game pulls some new townies next time, creating a never-ending stream of user-created content to populate your game. The game world would feel INFINITELY larger.
    wJbomAo.png
  • friendlysimmersfriendlysimmers Posts: 7,542 Member
    kwanzaabot wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.

    Yep. Family play simply does. not. work. online.
    Looking at Sims 4's early development, I think there's a reason there was such a focus on young adults, bars, and partying.


    The most I would want for a future Sims game (and honestly could work in TS4) is an improved Gallery.
    Have it work like the Sporepedia in Spore--it was a flawed game yes, but I'm amazed Maxis has never gone back to that well since. So many good ideas that could work in The Sims to solve common issues (cough, procedural animation, cough)

    Imagine if instead of randomly-generating townies, the game pulled them from the Gallery. And if you don't like the townies they create, then don't interact with them. If you don't become friends/lovers with them, they simply vanish at the end of your play session, and the game pulls some new townies next time, creating a never-ending stream of user-created content to populate your game. The game world would feel INFINITELY larger.

    @kwanzaabot i fully disagree with you most players prefer the sims game to be offline in my case as a player i tend to prefer offline play and would not went other players in my savegame
    If you went the sims5 to remain offline feel free to sign this petition http://chng.it/gtfHPhHK please note that it is also to keep the gallery



    Repose en paix mamie tu va me manquer :

    1923-2016 mamie :'(
  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    edited May 2020
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.

    Like in Minecraft, the save is hosted on a single player’s computer, and they open it up to act as server to the second (or more) player(s). Likely with a player cap.

    Sims aren’t direct representations of a single player. To make a Minecraft analogy, from a mechanical perspective, Sims are more akin to blocks or farm animals than the player. You can set it up so anyone can take control of any uncontrolled sim in the save, OR (like in Minecraft) set up “grief protection” where certain sims and property can only be affected by a designated player. In either case, the host game is controlled by the host, and they have ultimate say to change or abandon these settings.

    SO:

    1. The kid either is uncontrolled at birth by either player (with each being able to claim it) if they share a household, or it defaults to being controlled by the player whose sim “gave birth”, since it’s localized in the game world to them and their sim when born. In either case, it exists in the save, and the save ultimately belongs to the host.

    2. Again, the save is saved on the hosts computer, so the host gets the save. If my roommate and I suddenly stopped talking, she would no longer open her Minecraft world to me. That water temple we spent hundreds of hours on would be hers. She COULD make a copy of the save file and send it to me, and then we’d each have our own copy of the save, but by default she hosts on her computer so that’s where the data is.

    3. The same way you do now? Sims autonomously decide whether to accept or reject advances. Sims I don’t control flirt with my sim when I don’t want them to, and it’s not up to me whether my sim is receptive. I can cancel actions my sim is taking if I don’t like them, and I can make a sim be mean if I want to lower a relationship.

    Even in E for Everyone Animal Crossing two players could put some custom designs on their characters clothes to look naked and then do repeat actions next to each other to look like their doing the dirty and that’s video games for you. If your argument against it is “people will use sims for naughty role play!” then I have some unfortunate news to tell you about how people are using sims now.

    4. Again. The sims are stored in the hosts save file. The host can just continue playing with their friends sims when their friend stops playing. My roommate can open up our shared world in single-player and build without me and even destroy what I built in plenty of games already. And vice versa of me to her. That’s how locally hosted multiplayer works. The save is a normal single player save that belongs to the host but can be opened up to be accessed by other players either locally or online! It belongs to the host. Always. Host decides who to let in. Host decides if they don’t want to host any more. Host can kick people out. Host can play the save single-player without hosting.

    These problems are not the gotchas you seem to think they are. They are pretty straightforward if you know how games work. They basically break down to “but what about griefing?” and “but what if people stop getting along irl” to which the answers are the same as they are for all games. 1. You prevent griefing either by only playing with people you trust or adjusting settings (or using mods) to prevent griefing, and 2. the same thing that happens to all other things when two people who share have a falling out, someone gets custody. If I move home I’m taking my Switch with me and my roommate won’t be able to play Animal Crossing any more. Not a scenario worth eliminating an entire super fun mode of play to prevent.
    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    edited May 2020
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.

    Like in Minecraft, the save is hosted on a single player’s computer, and they open it up to act as server to the second (or more) player(s). Likely with a player cap.

    Sims aren’t direct representations of a single player. To make a Minecraft analogy, from a mechanical perspective, Sims are more akin to blocks or farm animals than the player. You can set it up so anyone can take control of any uncontrolled sim in the save, OR (like in Minecraft) set up “grief protection” where certain sims and property can only be affected by a designated player. In either case, the host game is controlled by the host, and they have ultimate say to change or abandon these settings.

    SO:

    1. The kid either is uncontrolled at birth by either player (with each being able to claim it) if they share a household, or it defaults to being controlled by the player whose sim “gave birth”, since it’s localized in the game world to them and their sim when born. In either case, it exists in the save, and the save ultimately belongs to the host.

    2. Again, the save is saved on the hosts computer, so the host gets the save. If my roommate and I suddenly stopped talking, she would no longer open her Minecraft world to me. That water temple we spent hundreds of hours on would be hers. She COULD make a copy of the save file and send it to me, and then we’d each have our own copy of the save, but by default she hosts on her computer so that’s where the data is.

    3. The same way you do now? Sims autonomously decide whether to accept or reject advances. Sims I don’t control flirt with my sim when I don’t want them to, and it’s not up to me whether my sim is receptive. I can cancel actions my sim is taking if I don’t like them, and I can make a sim be mean if I want to lower a relationship.

    Even in E for Everyone Animal Crossing two players could put some custom designs on their characters clothes to look naked and then do repeat actions next to each other to look like their doing the dirty and that’s video games for you. If your argument against it is “people will use sims for naughty role play!” then I have some unfortunate news to tell you about how people are using sims now.

    4. Again. The sims are stored in the hosts save file. The host can just continue playing with their friends sims when their friend stops playing. My roommate can open up our shared world in single-player and build without me and even destroy what I built in plenty of games already. And vice versa of me to her. That’s how locally hosted multiplayer works. The save is a normal single player save that belongs to the host but can be opened up to be accessed by other players either locally or online! It belongs to the host. Always. Host decides who to let in. Host decides if they don’t want to host any more. Host can kick people out. Host can play the save single-player without hosting.

    These problems are not the gotchas you seem to think they are. They are pretty straightforward if you know how games work. They basically break down to “but what about griefing?” and “but what if people stop getting along irl” to which the answers are the same as they are for all games. 1. You prevent griefing either by only playing with people you trust or adjusting settings (or using mods) to prevent griefing, and 2. the same thing that happens to all other things when two people who share have a falling out, someone gets custody. If I move home I’m taking my Switch with me and my roommate won’t be able to play Animal Crossing any more. Not a scenario worth eliminating an entire super fun mode of play to prevent.

    1 & 2. So I lose my ability to create a Sim to play with others unless I host and then other players lose their ability to create their own Sims if they play with me? That's a huge part of playing Sims, designing our OWN Sim(s) to play as. And that will turn a large number of players off of multiplayer.

    If the host decides to stop playing, I suddenly lose my Sims and any and all progress they've had? That will also turn off a lot of players.

    There are a ton of players who play without aging because they do not want to lose their Sims. I can't imagine them wanting to be at the whim of another player as to whether or not they get to play with their Sims.

    3. You missed my point, I'm very aware of Simmers who make their game X rated. EA had to remove the censor removal cheat in Sims 2 because people complained about it. EA shuts down any and all talk of anything M rated on the forums. How will EA handle the very M rated nature chat that Try for Baby could lead to if not X rated? TSO was hounded by a lot of a certain type of person. Just think about it.

    4. So my work can be destroyed by anyone in game? I'm going to nope right out of that. Do not want any part of that at all.

    While you are the first to actually come up with a system that addresses most of the problems (#3 is a problem in any game, but given the nature of this game it is a larger concern), your solution would likely turn off a large number of Simmers, if not the majority. I don't think it would be wise of them to put resources to multiplayer for the main series.


    Like I said, I have no problem if they make it a spin off game that can be better tailored to the faults of multiplayer games (resources, moderation, player expectation, etc). Depending on price and what it had, I might even try it out.

    I just do not want my single player game to have to share resources with a multiplayer version. Not given EA's track record with the Sims series. It already is bare bones with base game, SP's, GP's, and EP's with Sims 4, I do not want even more bare bones because now EA has to split funds for the multiplayer. Now if they can wow us with quantity and quality of releases with Sims 5, then we can talk about adding multiplayer to Sims 6.
  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    edited May 2020
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.

    Like in Minecraft, the save is hosted on a single player’s computer, and they open it up to act as server to the second (or more) player(s). Likely with a player cap.

    Sims aren’t direct representations of a single player. To make a Minecraft analogy, from a mechanical perspective, Sims are more akin to blocks or farm animals than the player. You can set it up so anyone can take control of any uncontrolled sim in the save, OR (like in Minecraft) set up “grief protection” where certain sims and property can only be affected by a designated player. In either case, the host game is controlled by the host, and they have ultimate say to change or abandon these settings.

    SO:

    1. The kid either is uncontrolled at birth by either player (with each being able to claim it) if they share a household, or it defaults to being controlled by the player whose sim “gave birth”, since it’s localized in the game world to them and their sim when born. In either case, it exists in the save, and the save ultimately belongs to the host.

    2. Again, the save is saved on the hosts computer, so the host gets the save. If my roommate and I suddenly stopped talking, she would no longer open her Minecraft world to me. That water temple we spent hundreds of hours on would be hers. She COULD make a copy of the save file and send it to me, and then we’d each have our own copy of the save, but by default she hosts on her computer so that’s where the data is.

    3. The same way you do now? Sims autonomously decide whether to accept or reject advances. Sims I don’t control flirt with my sim when I don’t want them to, and it’s not up to me whether my sim is receptive. I can cancel actions my sim is taking if I don’t like them, and I can make a sim be mean if I want to lower a relationship.

    Even in E for Everyone Animal Crossing two players could put some custom designs on their characters clothes to look naked and then do repeat actions next to each other to look like their doing the dirty and that’s video games for you. If your argument against it is “people will use sims for naughty role play!” then I have some unfortunate news to tell you about how people are using sims now.

    4. Again. The sims are stored in the hosts save file. The host can just continue playing with their friends sims when their friend stops playing. My roommate can open up our shared world in single-player and build without me and even destroy what I built in plenty of games already. And vice versa of me to her. That’s how locally hosted multiplayer works. The save is a normal single player save that belongs to the host but can be opened up to be accessed by other players either locally or online! It belongs to the host. Always. Host decides who to let in. Host decides if they don’t want to host any more. Host can kick people out. Host can play the save single-player without hosting.

    These problems are not the gotchas you seem to think they are. They are pretty straightforward if you know how games work. They basically break down to “but what about griefing?” and “but what if people stop getting along irl” to which the answers are the same as they are for all games. 1. You prevent griefing either by only playing with people you trust or adjusting settings (or using mods) to prevent griefing, and 2. the same thing that happens to all other things when two people who share have a falling out, someone gets custody. If I move home I’m taking my Switch with me and my roommate won’t be able to play Animal Crossing any more. Not a scenario worth eliminating an entire super fun mode of play to prevent.

    1 & 2. So I lose my ability to create a Sim to play with others unless I host and then other players lose their ability to create their own Sims if they play with me? That's a huge part of playing Sims, designing our OWN Sim(s) to play as. And that will turn a large number of players off of multiplayer.

    If the host decides to stop playing, I suddenly lose my Sims and any and all progress they've had? That will also turn off a lot of players.

    There are a ton of players who play without aging because they do not want to lose their Sims. I can't imagine them wanting to be at the whim of another player as to whether or not they get to play with their Sims.

    3. You missed my point, I'm very aware of Simmers who make their game X rated. EA had to remove the censor removal cheat in Sims 2 because people complained about it. EA shuts down any and all talk of anything M rated on the forums. How will EA handle the very M rated nature chat that Try for Baby could lead to if not X rated? TSO was hounded by a lot of a certain type of person. Just think about it.

    4. So my work can be destroyed by anyone in game? I'm going to nope right out of that. Do not want any part of that at all.

    While you are the first to actually come up with a system that addresses most of the problems (#3 is a problem in any game, but given the nature of this game it is a larger concern), your solution would likely turn off a large number of Simmers, if not the majority. I don't think it would be wise of them to put resources to multiplayer for the main series.


    Like I said, I have no problem if they make it a spin off game that can be better tailored to the faults of multiplayer games (resources, moderation, player expectation, etc). Depending on price and what it had, I might even try it out.

    I just do not want my single player game to have to share resources with a multiplayer version. Not given EA's track record with the Sims series. It already is bare bones with base game, SP's, GP's, and EP's with Sims 4, I do not want even more bare bones because now EA has to split funds for the multiplayer. Now if they can wow us with quantity and quality of releases with Sims 5, then we can talk about adding multiplayer to Sims 6.

    1&2 - Why wouldn’t you be able to make sims??? You would make sims. They’d just be saved in the hosts world. You could also still upload them so you could download them to your own game later, just like you can now. You could build and make sims just like always. Just in the host’s save.

    And nothing would prevent people from playing singleplayer like they already do, so you wouldn’t lose anything for the option existing. It is truly a bummer that you and so many on this thread cant think of any friends who you trust and spend regular time with and enjoy collaborating with on shared game experiences, apparently, but for people who do like to do those things with their friends, creating a sims story together would be fun. And it would be an extension of the single player experience, and so harmless to you and your single player saves and experiences.

    3. Things in chat and created by players are not rated by the ESRB, so would not affect the rating. If you don’t want those things in your game, play singleplayer or with like-minded people. That’s the point I was making. Even being able to draw a lifelike pixel dong in Animal Crossing doesn’t make it M.

    4. Not “anyone” can destroy your sims or builds. The single individual who you chose to play with can IF they also happen to be hosting your game (instead of you hosting yourself). Please, dwell in your memory on what it is like to have people you trust and interact with regularly. There must be someone whose company you enjoy and who you’d, like, share a sketch diary with or put a puzzle together with. That person. That person has a save (not all saves! One!) that you share. Collaboration is fun. An end to the relationship that spawned it is always a small risk. That’s the nature of collaboration. But it’s fun. Your point would put an end to literally all collaboration, because custody of the product of collaboration will always be an issue. But collaboration with someone you like and trust and vibe with is fun.

    It’s also not necessary! You’ll note all games I cite are singleplayer default experiences with multiplayer as entirely optional! So if you couldn’t have fun in multiplayer, no one would force you!

    But it’s just depressing sometimes that this franchise might never get good multiplayer because even mentioning the possibility starts a panic in the community over something completely viable and unobtrusive.

    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • Jon the WizardJon the Wizard Posts: 268 Member
    ...Am I the only one who remembers The Sims Online existed?
  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    The one thing I will say I agree with basically everyone on this thread on is I don’t trust EA to deliver. But I don’t trust EA to deliver a solid single player experience either. I think we end up in the position of fighting each other for scraps of a playable game instead of uniting to go after the person whose throwing us scraps when they have clear access to a full table. Like we blame vampires for a lack of babies or the bad emotion system for no cars. Like “if they hadn’t done THIS bad feature, this other feature would be good!”

    Like don’t blame other players’ play styles for EA making a bad greedy video game. It’s not players fault. It’s EA. A good game that balances all these features is possible.

    I don’t trust EA to do it, is all.
    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    When are you guys going to let players join each others game? Like play with other players?...... I think that would be awesome!

    That is an online game, which has already been shown to be unworkable in Sims format. Sims is for us to make and play our own households as we wish. The very idea that some unknown personage from no telling where with quite possibly malevolent intent could bust into my game and wreck havoc (not to mention introduce viruses and such) is utterly repugnant. There are at least 2 Sims-like games out there already, so try those if you like dangerous gaming.

    I don’t understand this assumption that “multiplayer” automatically means “mmo” or “anyone can enter your game”. That’s not how? Most multiplayer works?

    Like Minecraft’s single player experience is in no way damaged or interrupted by its multiplayer options. There’s a huge different between an mmo and opening my save to my roommate on LAN so we can sit next to each other on the couch and game on our laptops. It doesn’t even prevent the use of mods, as long as everyone is properly set up for it!

    Animal Crossing has a robust and complete single player experience and I can go weeks without having visitors or visiting someone else, but the option is nice! Being able to visit my brothers and niblings to play during quarantine and wish on stars together.

    There already exists a multiplayer mod for the Sims 4, and it’s very much restricted to only exactly the person you invite to play with you. And both the fact it exists and the downloads it has even though it’s a cobbled together mod experience is proof there is interest and demand from members of the community, so if folks would stop talking for what “the community” wants, I’d appreciate it.

    Multiplayer and mmos are not the same. It would need to be done right, and I’d want the single player experience to take priority, but I have no problem with potentially inviting my roommate into my save to, for instance, work on building a pool house in the back yard while I make the kids do homework. Or in an open world game, build a house for a different family in the same neighborhood as the family I’m playing! It could be fun!

    Right now we have all these convoluted ways to simulate multiplayer and competition already. Elaborate legacy challenges with points systems so complicated you need spreadsheets to keep track. Why keep score? Because we’re already competing. Speed build challenges where everyone uses a timer because you can’t actually have a head to head race.

    But imagine being in the same save and each having one sim with the same amount of money. You race to see who can build their house fastest or who can make money fastest or who can get married fastest. You can CHOOSE to allow sabotage or not because you’re in the same save area playing simultaneously because you’re FRIENDS, not random strangers.

    The fear of this option is, I know, a result of a deep and shared trauma among simmers. I get it. SimCity nearly killed EA. But that wasn’t multiplayer that was mandatory internet connection and there is such a huge difference. The Sims 4 doesn’t suffer because they were planning on having multiplayer, it suffers because their plans for executing that multiplayer were terrible and because they change gears so quickly they were forced to release a half-finished game. That doesn’t translate to multiplayer inherently being bad, or not good for the series.

    I am begging y’all to play some games with good multiplayer grafted onto a solid singleplayer experience like Minecraft or Stardew Valley. Multiplayer can be a great time had by a few close friends or family members. Not everything is WoW.

    Those games aren't the Sims, though. Not even the same exact genre so you can't compare them to see if multiplayer would be logical.

    Yes, there's interest. I highly doubt enough interest to warrant the main game being a multiplayer version. I'd be fine with them making another Sims Online as a spin off. I do not want it in the main series. It would split the resources of the devs and hurt BOTH single player and multiplayer aspects.

    Plus, not a single person in favor of multiplayer has ever answered any of the following questions with any amount of satisfaction on my end:

    1. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and a have kid. It's a single birth. Who gets the kid by default? IE: someone has to have control from the start so it has to default to someone.
    2. Two Simmers have their Sims marry in game and buy a single house and a have a family and a pooled bank account for the family. Those two Simmers have a falling out and can no longer be civil with each other. Who gets the house? What about the kids? The money?
    3. How would you handle the process of Trying for a Baby while maintaining the T rating given the chat?
    4. Two Simmers have their Sims marry and have kids but then one player stops playing without warning. What happens to the remaining person's Sim? What if the other player had control over the kids? How would you balance making sure the remaining player isn't stuck forever but not undoing the other player's progress?

    Those questions would persist even if you keep it to invite only.

    Like in Minecraft, the save is hosted on a single player’s computer, and they open it up to act as server to the second (or more) player(s). Likely with a player cap.

    Sims aren’t direct representations of a single player. To make a Minecraft analogy, from a mechanical perspective, Sims are more akin to blocks or farm animals than the player. You can set it up so anyone can take control of any uncontrolled sim in the save, OR (like in Minecraft) set up “grief protection” where certain sims and property can only be affected by a designated player. In either case, the host game is controlled by the host, and they have ultimate say to change or abandon these settings.

    SO:

    1. The kid either is uncontrolled at birth by either player (with each being able to claim it) if they share a household, or it defaults to being controlled by the player whose sim “gave birth”, since it’s localized in the game world to them and their sim when born. In either case, it exists in the save, and the save ultimately belongs to the host.

    2. Again, the save is saved on the hosts computer, so the host gets the save. If my roommate and I suddenly stopped talking, she would no longer open her Minecraft world to me. That water temple we spent hundreds of hours on would be hers. She COULD make a copy of the save file and send it to me, and then we’d each have our own copy of the save, but by default she hosts on her computer so that’s where the data is.

    3. The same way you do now? Sims autonomously decide whether to accept or reject advances. Sims I don’t control flirt with my sim when I don’t want them to, and it’s not up to me whether my sim is receptive. I can cancel actions my sim is taking if I don’t like them, and I can make a sim be mean if I want to lower a relationship.

    Even in E for Everyone Animal Crossing two players could put some custom designs on their characters clothes to look naked and then do repeat actions next to each other to look like their doing the dirty and that’s video games for you. If your argument against it is “people will use sims for naughty role play!” then I have some unfortunate news to tell you about how people are using sims now.

    4. Again. The sims are stored in the hosts save file. The host can just continue playing with their friends sims when their friend stops playing. My roommate can open up our shared world in single-player and build without me and even destroy what I built in plenty of games already. And vice versa of me to her. That’s how locally hosted multiplayer works. The save is a normal single player save that belongs to the host but can be opened up to be accessed by other players either locally or online! It belongs to the host. Always. Host decides who to let in. Host decides if they don’t want to host any more. Host can kick people out. Host can play the save single-player without hosting.

    These problems are not the gotchas you seem to think they are. They are pretty straightforward if you know how games work. They basically break down to “but what about griefing?” and “but what if people stop getting along irl” to which the answers are the same as they are for all games. 1. You prevent griefing either by only playing with people you trust or adjusting settings (or using mods) to prevent griefing, and 2. the same thing that happens to all other things when two people who share have a falling out, someone gets custody. If I move home I’m taking my Switch with me and my roommate won’t be able to play Animal Crossing any more. Not a scenario worth eliminating an entire super fun mode of play to prevent.

    1 & 2. So I lose my ability to create a Sim to play with others unless I host and then other players lose their ability to create their own Sims if they play with me? That's a huge part of playing Sims, designing our OWN Sim(s) to play as. And that will turn a large number of players off of multiplayer.

    If the host decides to stop playing, I suddenly lose my Sims and any and all progress they've had? That will also turn off a lot of players.

    There are a ton of players who play without aging because they do not want to lose their Sims. I can't imagine them wanting to be at the whim of another player as to whether or not they get to play with their Sims.

    3. You missed my point, I'm very aware of Simmers who make their game X rated. EA had to remove the censor removal cheat in Sims 2 because people complained about it. EA shuts down any and all talk of anything M rated on the forums. How will EA handle the very M rated nature chat that Try for Baby could lead to if not X rated? TSO was hounded by a lot of a certain type of person. Just think about it.

    4. So my work can be destroyed by anyone in game? I'm going to nope right out of that. Do not want any part of that at all.

    While you are the first to actually come up with a system that addresses most of the problems (#3 is a problem in any game, but given the nature of this game it is a larger concern), your solution would likely turn off a large number of Simmers, if not the majority. I don't think it would be wise of them to put resources to multiplayer for the main series.


    Like I said, I have no problem if they make it a spin off game that can be better tailored to the faults of multiplayer games (resources, moderation, player expectation, etc). Depending on price and what it had, I might even try it out.

    I just do not want my single player game to have to share resources with a multiplayer version. Not given EA's track record with the Sims series. It already is bare bones with base game, SP's, GP's, and EP's with Sims 4, I do not want even more bare bones because now EA has to split funds for the multiplayer. Now if they can wow us with quantity and quality of releases with Sims 5, then we can talk about adding multiplayer to Sims 6.

    1&2 - Why wouldn’t you be able to make sims??? You would make sims. They’d just be saved in the hosts world. You could also still upload them so you could download them to your own game later, just like you can now. You could build and make sims just like always. Just in the host’s save.

    And nothing would prevent people from playing singleplayer like they already do, so you wouldn’t lose anything for the option existing. It is truly a bummer that you and so many on this thread cant think of any friends who you trust and spend regular time with and enjoy collaborating with on shared game experiences, apparently, but for people who do like to do those things with their friends, creating a sims story together would be fun. And it would be an extension of the single player experience, and so harmless to you and your single player saves and experiences.

    3. Things in chat and created by players are not rated by the ESRB, so would not affect the rating. If you don’t want those things in your game, play singleplayer or with like-minded people. That’s the point I was making. Even being able to draw a lifelike pixel 🌺🌺🌺🌺 in Animal Crossing doesn’t make it M.

    4. Not “anyone” can destroy your sims or builds. The single individual who you chose to play with can IF they also happen to be hosting your game (instead of you hosting yourself). Please, dwell in your memory on what it is like to have people you trust and interact with regularly. There must be someone whose company you enjoy and who you’d, like, share a sketch diary with or put a puzzle together with. That person. That person has a save (not all saves! One!) that you share. Collaboration is fun. An end to the relationship that spawned it is always a small risk. That’s the nature of collaboration. But it’s fun. Your point would put an end to literally all collaboration, because custody of the product of collaboration will always be an issue. But collaboration with someone you like and trust and vibe with is fun.

    It’s also not necessary! You’ll note all games I cite are singleplayer default experiences with multiplayer as entirely optional! So if you couldn’t have fun in multiplayer, no one would force you!

    But it’s just depressing sometimes that this franchise might never get good multiplayer because even mentioning the possibility starts a panic in the community over something completely viable and unobtrusive.

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    3. - Again missing my point. Given the audience of this game and fact that parts of this game fit right up the alley with what certain people want to do, this game would be targeted by people who didn't get that and flamed for promoting it under the guise of online interaction isn't rated. It's one reason why The Sims Online failed.

    4. - People change. I flit from game to game and save to save. It's my nature. In a break period a person may change and allow anyone to have control over things and forget/not think to tell me. Then others could delete my stuff - not knowing it's mine. Nor would I want to host given all the drama that would likely happen and fall onto the hosts' lap when people have disagreements. If there's a group of friends out there that have been friends for a long enough time to trust each other in that type of game, disagreements will happen, even if they end up working it out in the end and then laughing over the absurdity of what they were fighting about.

    I'm very much a control freak. I couldn't play an ISBI. And that's a challenge where you can only control the founder/heir while they're the youngest founder/heir.

    Given EA's history with multiplayer options in a variety of their single player games, they don't tend to make it optional - or at least you feel punished for not. You want the best ending possible in Mass Effect 3? Multiplayer is how you have to do it unless you want to spend ages using a site to raise the number that playing in multiplayer raises. Sims 3 Showtime had stuff you had to unlock via Sim Port - which involves sending your Sim off to another player's game.

    Yea, I can still play single player. But if multiplayer is an option we'll be sharing resources to the detriment of both modes and I'll be forced to play multiplayer to unlock everything.

    And then EA will turn around and say that everyone enjoys multiplayer because everyone did it despite forcing players to play multiplayer to unlock everything in single player.

    Separate games, more than happy to support it and I'd probably try depending on cost and trailer and reviews (and probably not enjoy it for reasons mentioned earlier and I wouldn't get it at launch either so the initial kinks would likely be worked out already). Especially if they went with your "Minecraft" type hosting with maybe a few EA hosted servers for players who want to play multiplayer but have no friends yet, since it does solve a lot of the problems in ways that doesn't create new problems that are equal or worse (drama's going to happen no matter what) thatn the one it solves.

    Within the main series, not until I see some proof that at least EA can better manage its resources for single player only. None of this bare bones stuff where you have to have a few packs to feel like you've got a complete game. Which is how I feel with Sims 4 (I get that others may feel different about Sims 4).
  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.
    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.

    1&2 - So I make Sim A play and then log off. I'm not actively playing them. Are you telling me that someone else could take over them even in an accidental, I didn't know they were played by someone manner? That's asking for drama if the players invited to the hosts' server aren't friends with each other. I may trust the host, but what if they've made a new friend? I don't know if I trust them as I don't know them.

    Just because you've never had a problem doesn't mean problems don't happen.

    Drama will happen. It's human nature. You can't tell me that you've never had a disagreement with friends.

    I've played every Sims from Sims 1 to Sims 4. Sims 1 was fantastic. Sims 2 EA had a fair number of issues - some they never owned up to that were major (neighborhood corruption being the big one). Still a great game though. Sims 3 I had to have mods installed to have even a semi-stable game. It's still a good game overall. Sims 4 comes out and it's a disappointment to me and I had low expectations coming off of Sims 3. And look at other games they've released: ME: Andromeda, Anthem, etc. If I don't have low expectations of games they release, I will not be satisfied. When EA starts shattering my expectations with how well they are making games, then I will raise my expectations of the quality they will produce.

    And until such time, I will never support multiplayer within the main game. I don't trust EA currently to properly manage resources and give an appropriate budget to a Sims game with single player and multiplayer and keep the two modes completely separate with one mode unlocking nothing in the other mode.
  • ClarionOfJoyClarionOfJoy Posts: 1,945 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.


    What makes you think they will do multiplayer the way you're hoping? Because they've made NO mention of that and it won't generate a lot of profit for them. All they've ever talked about is making it competitive and that means playing against strangers and getting as many "friends" (who are really strangers) as possible.

    The way I'm handling it is if EA continues not listening to the simming community and insists on making it a competitive multiplayer game, then I'm just taking my money and spend it on better life sim games elsewhere, simple as that!

  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.

    1&2 - So I make Sim A play and then log off. I'm not actively playing them. Are you telling me that someone else could take over them even in an accidental, I didn't know they were played by someone manner? That's asking for drama if the players invited to the hosts' server aren't friends with each other. I may trust the host, but what if they've made a new friend? I don't know if I trust them as I don't know them.

    Just because you've never had a problem doesn't mean problems don't happen.

    Drama will happen. It's human nature. You can't tell me that you've never had a disagreement with friends.

    1&2 - presumably, as this is someone you trust, when you stop playing your joint save together, they log out of that save and play a different save. If they want to invite someone new to the save, hopefully they will be cordial and ask you first. If not, maybe they shouldn’t be someone you trust.

    Yes. Drama will happen. Drama will happen regardless. Should you not have an email address because your vengeful ex might hack your phone when you’re not looking, grab your password, and send vicious emails? Should you not have a spouse because one day you might have a messy divorce? Should the Beatles have never made music, because they eventually broke up? Why prevent the possibility of collaborative play just because a small number of people are bad at sharing or cooperation? Maybe they need to go back to kindergarten to get some kindness lessons, but a game shouldn’t get denied to everyone just because a couple kids can’t play nice.

    And while I’ve had disagreements with friends, and even major falling outs, the games we played at the time were still good games. I wouldn’t want Apples to Apples to never have been made just because the first people I played it with turned out to be jerks and I had to buy my own copy later when we stopped hanging out. Anyone I trust enough to share an important game save with, if we had a falling out big enough to effect our enjoyment, I would have lost a lot more than some game files so wouldn’t even be worried about that. Like if my roommate and I stopped talking I’d have bigger problems on my mind than some Minecraft and Don’t Starve saves.

    But that’s literally never been an issue because I choose my long term gaming buddies with care and we love each other, and regardless, there are both mechanical protections than can be put in place and that someone is going to have a bad experience doesn’t mean the option shouldn’t be there.

    Let me ask you a question: someone I know recently opened their island to a friend in Animal Crossing. They gave this friend “best friend” status (which is permission to dig and chop trees) because they knew each other irl. The game has protection from meddling, but this friend of mine disabled it for their friend. Their friend was new to gaming and Animal Crossing and also a bit dense, and needed wood to craft, so chopped down a bunch of trees on my friend’s island. This upset my friend, who had planted those trees intentionally and wanted them there. This is a real example of the kind of thing you are afraid of. Now think about everything you know about Animal Crossing, the huge social impact its had these past few months, the families that have met long distance with it, the communities that have sprung up around it, and how people are playing it, and tell me:

    Do you really think Animal Crossing as a whole would be a better game without multiplayer because of this single player’s bad experience?

    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • ClarionOfJoyClarionOfJoy Posts: 1,945 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »

    Do you really think Animal Crossing as a whole would be a better game without multiplayer because of this single player’s bad experience?


    Animal Crossing is NOT The Sims. EA wants The Sims to be a COMPETITIVE online multiplayer game - NOT a co-op game with just a few family and friends. That will NOT make them the profits that they want.


  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.


    What makes you think they will do multiplayer the way you're hoping? Because they've made NO mention of that and it won't generate a lot of profit for them. All they've ever talked about is making it competitive and that means playing against strangers and getting as many "friends" (who are really strangers) as possible.

    The way I'm handling it is if EA continues not listening to the simming community and insists on making it a competitive multiplayer game, then I'm just taking my money and spend it on better life sim games elsewhere, simple as that!

    What makes you think they’d do singleplayer the way you’re hoping? Not all microtransactions or limited play?

    I have said: I approve a lack of faith in EA. I do not trust EA. I just think that ire should be properly directed. At EA. Not at viable game features. It is absolutely foolish to think there’s some magic combination of gameplay mechanics and features that would prevent EA from being EA and doing the greedy things they will do. If they can’t squeeze money out at the expense of quality one way, they will find another.

    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.

    1&2 - So I make Sim A play and then log off. I'm not actively playing them. Are you telling me that someone else could take over them even in an accidental, I didn't know they were played by someone manner? That's asking for drama if the players invited to the hosts' server aren't friends with each other. I may trust the host, but what if they've made a new friend? I don't know if I trust them as I don't know them.

    Just because you've never had a problem doesn't mean problems don't happen.

    Drama will happen. It's human nature. You can't tell me that you've never had a disagreement with friends.

    1&2 - presumably, as this is someone you trust, when you stop playing your joint save together, they log out of that save and play a different save. If they want to invite someone new to the save, hopefully they will be cordial and ask you first. If not, maybe they shouldn’t be someone you trust.

    Yes. Drama will happen. Drama will happen regardless. Should you not have an email address because your vengeful ex might hack your phone when you’re not looking, grab your password, and send vicious emails? Should you not have a spouse because one day you might have a messy divorce? Should the Beatles have never made music, because they eventually broke up? Why prevent the possibility of collaborative play just because a small number of people are bad at sharing or cooperation? Maybe they need to go back to kindergarten to get some kindness lessons, but a game shouldn’t get denied to everyone just because a couple kids can’t play nice.

    And while I’ve had disagreements with friends, and even major falling outs, the games we played at the time were still good games. I wouldn’t want Apples to Apples to never have been made just because the first people I played it with turned out to be 🌺🌺🌺🌺 and I had to buy my own copy later when we stopped hanging out. Anyone I trust enough to share an important game save with, if we had a falling out big enough to effect our enjoyment, I would have lost a lot more than some game files so wouldn’t even be worried about that. Like if my roommate and I stopped talking I’d have bigger problems on my mind than some Minecraft and Don’t Starve saves.

    But that’s literally never been an issue because I choose my long term gaming buddies with care and we love each other, and regardless, there are both mechanical protections than can be put in place and that someone is going to have a bad experience doesn’t mean the option shouldn’t be there.

    Let me ask you a question: someone I know recently opened their island to a friend in Animal Crossing. They gave this friend “best friend” status (which is permission to dig and chop trees) because they knew each other irl. The game has protection from meddling, but this friend of mine disabled it for their friend. Their friend was new to gaming and Animal Crossing and also a bit dense, and needed wood to craft, so chopped down a bunch of trees on my friend’s island. This upset my friend, who had planted those trees intentionally and wanted them there. This is a real example of the kind of thing you are afraid of. Now think about everything you know about Animal Crossing, the huge social impact its had these past few months, the families that have met long distance with it, the communities that have sprung up around it, and how people are playing it, and tell me:

    Do you really think Animal Crossing as a whole would be a better game without multiplayer because of this single player’s bad experience?

    Your example of the friend with the trees is exactly the kind of thing that would destroy any attachment I have to the game and exactly the type of problem I was alluding to in my previous posts. I get attached to my Sims and my lots. Just because they're in someone else's save doesn't change that. You mess with my stuff, even if accidentally, it would destroy my attachment to them. Which is my biggest problem with Sims 4: there's something missing that generates that attachment to the Sims in the game. I can't put words as to what that is or I'd have made a thread about it. I wish I knew.

    Animal Crossing wouldn't be better but here's 3 things: it's not Sims, it's not a life simulator in the same vein as Sims, and it's not made by EA.

    No amount of this unrelated game melded the two modes seamlessly is going to change my mind on this. Only once EA releases a Sims game (or multiple games from across their series) that blows people away with how good it is will I even consider being neutral on multiplayer in the main Sims series.
  • IvyeyedIvyeyed Posts: 358 Member
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.

    1&2 - So I make Sim A play and then log off. I'm not actively playing them. Are you telling me that someone else could take over them even in an accidental, I didn't know they were played by someone manner? That's asking for drama if the players invited to the hosts' server aren't friends with each other. I may trust the host, but what if they've made a new friend? I don't know if I trust them as I don't know them.

    Just because you've never had a problem doesn't mean problems don't happen.

    Drama will happen. It's human nature. You can't tell me that you've never had a disagreement with friends.

    1&2 - presumably, as this is someone you trust, when you stop playing your joint save together, they log out of that save and play a different save. If they want to invite someone new to the save, hopefully they will be cordial and ask you first. If not, maybe they shouldn’t be someone you trust.

    Yes. Drama will happen. Drama will happen regardless. Should you not have an email address because your vengeful ex might hack your phone when you’re not looking, grab your password, and send vicious emails? Should you not have a spouse because one day you might have a messy divorce? Should the Beatles have never made music, because they eventually broke up? Why prevent the possibility of collaborative play just because a small number of people are bad at sharing or cooperation? Maybe they need to go back to kindergarten to get some kindness lessons, but a game shouldn’t get denied to everyone just because a couple kids can’t play nice.

    And while I’ve had disagreements with friends, and even major falling outs, the games we played at the time were still good games. I wouldn’t want Apples to Apples to never have been made just because the first people I played it with turned out to be 🌺🌺🌺🌺 and I had to buy my own copy later when we stopped hanging out. Anyone I trust enough to share an important game save with, if we had a falling out big enough to effect our enjoyment, I would have lost a lot more than some game files so wouldn’t even be worried about that. Like if my roommate and I stopped talking I’d have bigger problems on my mind than some Minecraft and Don’t Starve saves.

    But that’s literally never been an issue because I choose my long term gaming buddies with care and we love each other, and regardless, there are both mechanical protections than can be put in place and that someone is going to have a bad experience doesn’t mean the option shouldn’t be there.

    Let me ask you a question: someone I know recently opened their island to a friend in Animal Crossing. They gave this friend “best friend” status (which is permission to dig and chop trees) because they knew each other irl. The game has protection from meddling, but this friend of mine disabled it for their friend. Their friend was new to gaming and Animal Crossing and also a bit dense, and needed wood to craft, so chopped down a bunch of trees on my friend’s island. This upset my friend, who had planted those trees intentionally and wanted them there. This is a real example of the kind of thing you are afraid of. Now think about everything you know about Animal Crossing, the huge social impact its had these past few months, the families that have met long distance with it, the communities that have sprung up around it, and how people are playing it, and tell me:

    Do you really think Animal Crossing as a whole would be a better game without multiplayer because of this single player’s bad experience?

    Your example of the friend with the trees is exactly the kind of thing that would destroy any attachment I have to the game and exactly the type of problem I was alluding to in my previous posts. I get attached to my Sims and my lots. Just because they're in someone else's save doesn't change that. You mess with my stuff, even if accidentally, it would destroy my attachment to them. Which is my biggest problem with Sims 4: there's something missing that generates that attachment to the Sims in the game. I can't put words as to what that is or I'd have made a thread about it. I wish I knew.

    Animal Crossing wouldn't be better but here's 3 things: it's not Sims, it's not a life simulator in the same vein as Sims, and it's not made by EA.

    No amount of this unrelated game melded the two modes seamlessly is going to change my mind on this. Only once EA releases a Sims game (or multiple games from across their series) that blows people away with how good it is will I even consider being neutral on multiplayer in the main Sims series.

    So to summarize:

    1. Fears of sabotage or loss aren’t automatically enough to invalidate the benefit of a good multiplayer and

    2. The problem isn’t multiplayer itself, but fears of how EA would handle it.

    Which I agree with exactly.

    Sometimes I stream.

    This EA account is shared between two longtime roommates. The one most likely to be writing here is me, the taller of the roommates, whose opinions do not always represent the opinions of the shorter roommate.
  • ClarionOfJoyClarionOfJoy Posts: 1,945 Member
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Ivyeyed wrote: »
    Seera1024 wrote: »

    1&2 - You said that the Sims the joiners could use were the Sims in the hosts' world. Not Sims of our own creation.

    No, I said sims in the save (created by you or other players) would either be player-locked or up for grabs to control according to the settings/rules set by the host (with the host able to change them later if you’re never coming back), with you unable to grab a sim actively being controlled by someone else at the moment.

    As to your playstyle that’s your playstyle and that’s totally okay. But I’ve played games without any grief protection for years with close friends and literally never had a problem. Assuming things would always become dramatic or go south just objectively isn’t true.

    And not trusting EA is founded, but that’s on EA. There is no mechanical, technical, or philosophical reason you couldn’t have a well made and robust single player Sims game that also had multiplayer. And we do ourselves a disservice by treating EA’s bad quality as an unavoidable inevitability that we have to negotiate with rather than the entirely avoidable negligence of quality and contempt for players that it actually is.


    What makes you think they will do multiplayer the way you're hoping? Because they've made NO mention of that and it won't generate a lot of profit for them. All they've ever talked about is making it competitive and that means playing against strangers and getting as many "friends" (who are really strangers) as possible.

    The way I'm handling it is if EA continues not listening to the simming community and insists on making it a competitive multiplayer game, then I'm just taking my money and spend it on better life sim games elsewhere, simple as that!

    What makes you think they’d do singleplayer the way you’re hoping? Not all microtransactions or limited play?

    I have said: I approve a lack of faith in EA. I do not trust EA. I just think that ire should be properly directed. At EA. Not at viable game features. It is absolutely foolish to think there’s some magic combination of gameplay mechanics and features that would prevent EA from being EA and doing the greedy things they will do. If they can’t squeeze money out at the expense of quality one way, they will find another.


    That's the thing. I hold no illusions that they will make TS5 a good singleplayer game. And I already said that if they don't, I'm just taking my money and buying the other life-sim games that are coming out.

    You should also hold no illusion that EA will make the game co-op friendly with just a few family and friends, because that won't make any profits for them and that was never their modus operandi when The Sims Online was out.

    Also, you don't even have to wait for co-op multiplaying in TS5 when there is already a FREE mod for TS4 (LAN connection is free, but internet play is subscription based). I would much rather that TS4 becomes online than TS5 because TS4 was originally meant to be an online multiplaying game in the first place. Why not enjoy that now instead of waiting for TS5?

    Keep TS5 totally offline with just an online exchange or gallery that we can turn off for most of the time.


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