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TS5: Immersive experiences and twists of fate
popstarsley
Posts: 1,086 Member
Participating in another post about potential city life in TS5, I started daydreaming about some fun ideas to enliven TS5 towns and create a really engaging world.
Personally, I don’t like how the current towns are so “collection” based where excitement revolves around what random artifact you’ll find. It would be cool if the game randomly spawned “experiences” instead of items, things Youtubers can’t spoil the location of, and may not be the same twice.
I’d prefer to uncover unique experiences....
🎁 Find an underground band rocking out in an offshoot alley
🎁 A mysterious merchant selling one-of-a-kind wares that can’t be glommed from debug or bought from the rewards store
🎁 Discover a pop-up restaurant that serves an extremely rare food type for one night and then vanishes for weeks
🎁 Climb a fence into a celeb-packed pool party and end up in tomorrow’s gossip rag, eliciting phone calls from curious friends
🎁 Learn a random phrase throughout your travels that ultimately is the passcode to get into a puzzlingly generated speakeasy that moves locations throughout the month. IRL there’s
a bar in my neighborhood where a guy stands by a potted flowered tree and lets you into a beautiful basement library night-cap bar if you “know the code” (printed on dinner receipts, changes daily)
🎁 Stumble upon an impromptu basketball match and make new friends you ultimately start a weekly pick-up game and BBQ with
🎁 Find a strange lad playing chess solo in the park that regales you with town whispers or investment tips
Just some ideas! I’d love to see more unpredictability in TS5, and towns peppered with little curious mysteries that can really personalize live gameplay.
What are some of your ideas?
Personally, I don’t like how the current towns are so “collection” based where excitement revolves around what random artifact you’ll find. It would be cool if the game randomly spawned “experiences” instead of items, things Youtubers can’t spoil the location of, and may not be the same twice.
I’d prefer to uncover unique experiences....
🎁 Find an underground band rocking out in an offshoot alley
🎁 A mysterious merchant selling one-of-a-kind wares that can’t be glommed from debug or bought from the rewards store
🎁 Discover a pop-up restaurant that serves an extremely rare food type for one night and then vanishes for weeks
🎁 Climb a fence into a celeb-packed pool party and end up in tomorrow’s gossip rag, eliciting phone calls from curious friends
🎁 Learn a random phrase throughout your travels that ultimately is the passcode to get into a puzzlingly generated speakeasy that moves locations throughout the month. IRL there’s
a bar in my neighborhood where a guy stands by a potted flowered tree and lets you into a beautiful basement library night-cap bar if you “know the code” (printed on dinner receipts, changes daily)
🎁 Stumble upon an impromptu basketball match and make new friends you ultimately start a weekly pick-up game and BBQ with
🎁 Find a strange lad playing chess solo in the park that regales you with town whispers or investment tips
Just some ideas! I’d love to see more unpredictability in TS5, and towns peppered with little curious mysteries that can really personalize live gameplay.
What are some of your ideas?
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Comments
Yes TS4 is awash with rage-inducing rabbit holes. 😂 That Sulani cave is a perfect example! That’s why I am hoping the town mechanics in The Sims 5 can support more immersion stories like these!
I really hope TS5 devs consider your great idea about dynamic lots with events that pop up randomly. I don't think TS5 will be built on the same crappy game engine that TS4 is built on so these wouldn't be rabbitholes at all and will be possible to do!
As a matter of fact, I hope the other life simulation games will implement this as well since it is a great step up in the advancement of life simulation games!
It would be great if lifesims could learn a few lessons from games like GTAV and Red Dead Redemption and up the vibrancy of their living worlds!
They really need to add more tools to create what “could happen.” The interactions and lot visits in TS4 are so predictable. For example, it would be great if in TS5 during a conversation at a bar, somebody says that a new band is playing at another lot down the street and asks if you want to tag along. Or maybe a sports team wins so the place starts handing out free drinks and snacks. For me, the game is too predictable right now.
One of my favorite things to do in GTA is pick up cars via helicopter, land them on skyscrapers, and drive them over the edge. Or collect a hundred Smart Cars and blow them up to clog up a busy intersection. 🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️ That game has so many tools so you can make up your own fun whereas TS4 is so rigidly pigeon-holed into a very precise set of scenarios....and by “set” I mean 1 or 2.
Yes, the scenarios you're suggesting aren't hard to code. In TS3 an active sim often gets invited out somewhere or to a party over the phone, but in your scenarios, it's basically face to face. TS3 also had event markers that trigger different lot layouts for certain events in a lot. That's what they used for the seasonal lots and the university's Meet & Greet. So those could be used for all the random events. Then the event markers can just.be placed in the lots where they can be randomly but appropriately triggered.
Either way, I agree with you that Maxis has to step it up with the innovation. Your suggestion to have them look at those two Rockstar games (and others) for inspiration is good advice!