I think that the Sims devs are friendly to the idea of having occults in the game. They made the best vampires we've ever had. I'd say that the issue is more that the "realism" crowd is over-represented among the Game Changers, and that those Game Changers in turn really have the ear of the dev team. Some of them are outright hostile to the idea of having occult life states in the game.
I put "realism" in quotes because that aversion to occults also extends to elements that present more negative outcomes for sims -- things like death types, debuffs, and generally other things that can make sims miserable. Those things are also part of a realistic experience, but they get in the way of the playstyle where one's perfect supermodel sims live their perfect nuclear family lives with their perfect children. It's fine if that's how one wants to play The Sims 4, but it shouldn't be the only way to play it. It's why vampires don't visit anymore. It's why the weirder content get partitioned off into dark little corners, and it makes me wonder if there will even be occult lifestates in a hypothetical Sims 5.
Doesnt help whenever we get a scrap of occult anything, here comes the realism-only crowd out in full force demanding that occult presence be nerfed to nothing and anyone who actually enjoyed occult content has to shut up and take it. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one more occult pack before Sims 5.
This. I mean can you imagine the outrage if they announced a supernatural expansion rather than the farming one? I bet the community would be on fire right now
Every corner of the sims internet would be up in flames if it was supernatural related, meanwhile we get, yet again, MORE country/cottage aesthetic as if we don't already have a catalog saturated with it. This new EP could have easily been a GP.
Oh, yes, it could've easily been a GP, that is if you want "Sims 4: Chickens" and to lose bunnies, cows, wild foxes, the world, the new recipes, plants, and farming contests, the village errand system, and several other things. But hey, we'd be able to breed and showcase chickens- maybe they'd even let us keep needlepoint!
I'm sorry, I was hoping for faeries just as much as anyone else here. I was still holding on hope that they were going to be included after the trailer was revealed until a guru came around and confirmed their absence. But this whole "this pack could've been (x smaller version)" thing is completely ridiculous to me. Sometimes, sure, certain ideas could be executed in a way that would fit a smaller pack, and some could be much bigger, but this one? I really can't see it.
I'm still hoping for faeries. I will hope for them till they arrive, and I hope they get a dedicated gamepack. Or maybe an expansion pack full of different faerie types, that'd be something, yeah?
They could have still done all that in a GP and minimized the build/buy and CAS. Anything gardening this pack will bring could have been in Eco Lifestyle, Seasons, or even a base game patch.
So it could be a gamepack if only they removed items, and either invented a time machine to go back into the past and renovate previous packs or give it to us for free. It's a company, so the last part is pretty unlikely, and as far as I'm aware time machines haven't been invented yet.
Agree to disagree, it's a waste of an entire EP in my opinion when we have worlds and items that are already "country/cottage" aesthetic. Time for something different.
I think that the Sims devs are friendly to the idea of having occults in the game. They made the best vampires we've ever had. I'd say that the issue is more that the "realism" crowd is over-represented among the Game Changers, and that those Game Changers in turn really have the ear of the dev team. Some of them are outright hostile to the idea of having occult life states in the game.
I put "realism" in quotes because that aversion to occults also extends to elements that present more negative outcomes for sims -- things like death types, debuffs, and generally other things that can make sims miserable. Those things are also part of a realistic experience, but they get in the way of the playstyle where one's perfect supermodel sims live their perfect nuclear family lives with their perfect children. It's fine if that's how one wants to play The Sims 4, but it shouldn't be the only way to play it. It's why vampires don't visit anymore. It's why the weirder content get partitioned off into dark little corners, and it makes me wonder if there will even be occult lifestates in a hypothetical Sims 5.
And that's the thing, I don't even care about occults as much as having more unique worlds, items, and gameplay. Everything is so plain, suburbia, white picket fence perfection. Why not a world like Magic Town? Aurora Skies? Lunar Lakes? Midnight Hollow? Any of the locations from World Adventures? Base some packs around those, doesn't even have to be occult related. Everything is so plain and boring.
I think that the Sims devs are friendly to the idea of having occults in the game. They made the best vampires we've ever had. I'd say that the issue is more that the "realism" crowd is over-represented among the Game Changers, and that those Game Changers in turn really have the ear of the dev team. Some of them are outright hostile to the idea of having occult life states in the game.
I put "realism" in quotes because that aversion to occults also extends to elements that present more negative outcomes for sims -- things like death types, debuffs, and generally other things that can make sims miserable. Those things are also part of a realistic experience, but they get in the way of the playstyle where one's perfect supermodel sims live their perfect nuclear family lives with their perfect children. It's fine if that's how one wants to play The Sims 4, but it shouldn't be the only way to play it. It's why vampires don't visit anymore. It's why the weirder content get partitioned off into dark little corners, and it makes me wonder if there will even be occult lifestates in a hypothetical Sims 5.
Gotta say, this makes sense, and it's kind of infuriating. My understanding is that Sims could originally date/romance/woohoo (etc) with Grim, up to a certain point when suddenly that gameplay aspect was removed (seriously, why?!). And then people start complaining about vampires visiting their households - well okay, you bought the vampires game pack, you expected to have vampires in the game, what did you think you were getting just some nifty Cas and Build items & a bunch of sparklepires otherwise? Don't even get me started on Island Living & the ability for Sims to get a tan: so besides mermaids being tacked on as an afterthought from the sounds of it, vampires are nerfed from visiting, deaths other than dying from old age occur rarely, you can't get your freak on with Grim anymore, but staying out in the sun to get a tan is just dandy - guess risk aversion in gameplay only applies when it's something that doesn't fit with a barbie clone lifestyle or has anything to do with occults. Yeah this stuff bugs me, a lot. Don't pretend you* want realism in your game play, when what you really want is a perfectly instagram filtered sims life, complete with the perfectly instagram filtered sims family that you can look down your perfectly instagram filtered noses with at the occult players.
(*you as in general, all encompassing 'you', not singling out any one individual or group of individuals).
Occult Simmer (All Occult All The Time)
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.
I think that the Sims devs are friendly to the idea of having occults in the game. They made the best vampires we've ever had. I'd say that the issue is more that the "realism" crowd is over-represented among the Game Changers, and that those Game Changers in turn really have the ear of the dev team. Some of them are outright hostile to the idea of having occult life states in the game.
I put "realism" in quotes because that aversion to occults also extends to elements that present more negative outcomes for sims -- things like death types, debuffs, and generally other things that can make sims miserable. Those things are also part of a realistic experience, but they get in the way of the playstyle where one's perfect supermodel sims live their perfect nuclear family lives with their perfect children. It's fine if that's how one wants to play The Sims 4, but it shouldn't be the only way to play it. It's why vampires don't visit anymore. It's why the weirder content get partitioned off into dark little corners, and it makes me wonder if there will even be occult lifestates in a hypothetical Sims 5.
Ive noticed that too and I find it perplexing. Ive seen suggestions that would seem more like parts of everyday life than outright negatives, but are argued against as "too realistic."
Say for example "sims taking out a loan to buy a house or restaurant, and if they fail to pay the loan, they lose the house/restaurant or repoman takes items to repay the debt."
Or, say you want your sim to become a doctor. Well, in the real world doctors go to school and get a medical degree before becoming doctors. If you have University, sims will never progress far into the Doctor career field without a medical degree (or cheats). Just playing chess to level up your logic will do nothing.
Sims getting paid everyday? Most people are paid bi-weekly or weekly, with a certain amount taken out for taxes. That 2k check your sim just got? Wrong! 1500 is actually the take home pay.
Three realistic scenarios, yet someone could look at this and say "that's too realistic." Now that person has the right to say that, but this game is always flooded with requests for more realism, and these scenarios Ive mentioned are pretty realistic. When does it suddenly become "too realistic"? Why is a line being drawn? Is it because these scenarios dont immediately add to the quality of life to a sim's family? Real life isnt all sunshine and buttercups, and to me, just choosing all the best parts of real life and ignoring the not so best parts of real life isnt very realistic. I find it pretty naive. If you ask me, an actual vampire at my doorstep is just as unrealistic as me calling up the hospital for a job with no qualifications, and being offered a job as a surgeon.
I dont fault anyone that just wants their sims to live the life in a perfect suburban home or an instagram celebrity, but there's alot of cherry picking going on as to what gets to be "realistic". You can't have the good and pretend that the bad doesnt even exist.
Doesnt help whenever we get a scrap of occult anything, here comes the realism-only crowd out in full force demanding that occult presence be nerfed to nothing and anyone who actually enjoyed occult content has to shut up and take it. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one more occult pack before Sims 5.
This. I mean can you imagine the outrage if they announced a supernatural expansion rather than the farming one? I bet the community would be on fire right now
Every corner of the sims internet would be up in flames if it was supernatural related, meanwhile we get, yet again, MORE country/cottage aesthetic as if we don't already have a catalog saturated with it. This new EP could have easily been a GP.
Yeah, I got downvoted into oblivion on Youtube and Reddit for saying: "I'm glad we're getting a farming pack, can we please get werewolves and fairies now? Since people have been asking for them for the same amount of time as farming."
This fandom makes me scratch my head honestly like maybe it wasn't the right place to add my comment, but it's still a valid ask. :-/ XD
Give our Vampires back their fangs!!! Reverse the Nerf!!! Occult simmers should not be shoved aside for the "realism players"! It's time Occult lovers/players started to demand equal treatment. #JusticeForOccults
Doesnt help whenever we get a scrap of occult anything, here comes the realism-only crowd out in full force demanding that occult presence be nerfed to nothing and anyone who actually enjoyed occult content has to shut up and take it. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one more occult pack before Sims 5.
This. I mean can you imagine the outrage if they announced a supernatural expansion rather than the farming one? I bet the community would be on fire right now
Every corner of the sims internet would be up in flames if it was supernatural related, meanwhile we get, yet again, MORE country/cottage aesthetic as if we don't already have a catalog saturated with it. This new EP could have easily been a GP.
Yeah, I got downvoted into oblivion on Youtube and Reddit for saying: "I'm glad we're getting a farming pack, can we please get werewolves and fairies now? Since people have been asking for them for the same amount of time as farming."
This fandom makes me scratch my head honestly like maybe it wasn't the right place to add my comment, but it's still a valid ask. :-/ XD
I was thinking about fairy fans and how they must be feeling right now. We're at the tail end The Sims 4's development cycle, and werewolves haven't even come yet. What are the chances that fairies will make it in time? That's really unfortunate.
Doesnt help whenever we get a scrap of occult anything, here comes the realism-only crowd out in full force demanding that occult presence be nerfed to nothing and anyone who actually enjoyed occult content has to shut up and take it. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one more occult pack before Sims 5.
This. I mean can you imagine the outrage if they announced a supernatural expansion rather than the farming one? I bet the community would be on fire right now
Every corner of the sims internet would be up in flames if it was supernatural related, meanwhile we get, yet again, MORE country/cottage aesthetic as if we don't already have a catalog saturated with it. This new EP could have easily been a GP.
Yeah, I got downvoted into oblivion on Youtube and Reddit for saying: "I'm glad we're getting a farming pack, can we please get werewolves and fairies now? Since people have been asking for them for the same amount of time as farming."
This fandom makes me scratch my head honestly like maybe it wasn't the right place to add my comment, but it's still a valid ask. :-/ XD
I was thinking about fairy fans and how they must be feeling right now. We're at the tail end The Sims 4's development cycle, and werewolves haven't even come yet. What are the chances that fairies will make it in time? That's really unfortunate.
Yeah, we're nearing the final hurrah for the sims 4, it's about time the missing occults were added. I can't help but feel like this chapter in the franchise will go out with a whimper instead of a bang...
Give our Vampires back their fangs!!! Reverse the Nerf!!! Occult simmers should not be shoved aside for the "realism players"! It's time Occult lovers/players started to demand equal treatment. #JusticeForOccults
It sucks, but we'll get them eventually. Who knows, maybe they'll even be done well...
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha your comment made me rofl - like pointing at your face and really laughing out loud. I mean, 'maybe they'll even be done well' totally cracked me up. To be fair, it all started so promising with vampires. And sure, I later noticed there were aliens hidden in my Get to Work Pack. And ghosts were in the Base Game (added post release of course). But witches got mutated into these 'spell casters', plant sims are about as interesting as a head of cabbage, and don't get me started on the mermen... Then I re-read OP's post and totally get how they're feeling... 7 years... I feel sad now
Sometimes I am convinced that Vampires pack was made by another studio - it is STRANGELY well constructed and is very enjoyable. But yeah, for some reason occult is not very popular in Sims 4. Main reason would be lack of imagination in player base. Vampire gameplay can be surprisingly serious and grounded.
Sometimes I am convinced that Vampires pack was made by another studio - it is STRANGELY well constructed and is very enjoyable. But yeah, for some reason occult is not very popular in Sims 4. Main reason would be lack of imagination in player base. Vampire gameplay can be surprisingly serious and grounded.
I think it's one of (or maybe *the* only) time they really leaned into power fantasy, while still keeping in line with the goofiness they are attached to. RoM was maybe the only other one close, but from what I remember, it didn't really go in the "mess with other sims" direction as much, more of a variety pack of different uses of magic.
Possibly why it stands out. One of the few times 4 bordered on an element of seriousness, I think. I mean, they rode the line with some of it, like the mood changing, which can (oopsie ) enable you to "accidentally" cause sims to have emotional deaths. I'm not sure there's anything else that close to being almost explicitly not a goofy kids game in the sims 4. It's easy to imagine the development team has some people who would prefer to do less of the kiddie stuff sometimes, may be more skilled at such, but have to stick to the marketing direction of the game. After all, most of the AAA industry design is nothing close to the level of kid appeal that this game is, so most of the experience is probably not in making games for kids. But anyway, I digress and speculate, which I do sometimes.
I really like how TS4 vampires are like the ones in TS2 but expanded!
The ones in TS3 are the worst ones in my opinion.
I hoped Cottage Living would come with a full plantsim lifestate, I feel that would make sense. They wouldn't even take much resources to develop, since there's already basic coding for them, and they don't need any skill tree. Just the ability to grow plantbabies, have leaves instead of hair, and some special interactions and abilities with plants.
And for those who prefer to play more realistic, the way to become a plantsim would work like in previous games. Either turn into one by overusing pesticides, or by eating forbidden fruit. And there wouldn't be any plantsim townies.
My favorite part of the Sims franchise was the occult.
In Sims 2, certain expansions gave you the option to seek out the occult, in relatively normal game play. Maybe except for Witches from Apartment Life who hung out at lots. In Sims 2 pets, the Leader of the Pack had to befriended before a Sim could be turned into a Werewolf. It balanced both "realistic" play, and allowed occult Sims to choose whether they wanted to pursue the Occult or not.
Sims 3 had an entire Supernatural Pack to itself as well as the world they could live in. Except for the sparkling vampires, I adored this pack. I liked how the different phases of the moon could effect events in that world as well, and how on the full moon zombies would pop up.
Then there is Sims 4. Vampires is Sims 4 were actually well thought out with strengths and weaknesses. Which I enjoy. After that, it seems to have been kind of downhill from that. Get to Work had Aliens, and when I got it, they toned down the Alien abductions. With the newest update that seems to have come back, which I was really happy about. Mermaids seemed to be tacked on last minute, and Mages in Realm of Magic could have been pushed so much more. They have a similar set up to Vampires, but less thought out.
My biggest issue with the Occult type packs is that most "realistic" players argue that Spooky stuff was part of the Occult, or Journey to Batuu is an Occult pack. Which they are not, Spooky stuff is a Halloween pack, and Journey to Batuu was a cash grab.
I really want werewolves, fairies, or a world that is solely an occult world, not like the ones we got for Vampires or Realm of Magic. Or at least give us more to do in those worlds.
I always loved occult more than anything in this franchise. Em wolves, wizards, vampires, fairies I believe most simmers do as vampires dlc is regarded as the best to many people including me.
But yeah... occults suffer now.
In the good times when the sims was made by people who love it, I mean, it was their creation, things were different.
There was a high focus on gameplay as gameplay is what gives the most fun. Interactions, occults, easter eggs... mysteries, witch doctors :P npcs had real personalities, real stories.
Ofc, that all is gone after filthy EA took over.
You see, gameplay takes a lot of time, work, coding, patching... to em filthy EA pigs they see it as a bad thing. Love is counter productive in terms of money grubbing. Adding werewolves or mummies for example,giving a skill tree to mermaids or making aliens relevant, all of this would take time and effort from several professionals... that means money... theyd pay coders more to add fun to the game. But fun doesnt fill their pockets.
So what EA does? Screw gameplay, add chairs, add hairstyles, add new dresses... fool the player base by addin a photography dlc, another job about changing outfits, another about using build mode to redecorate rooms, make kits selling assets we were too greedy to add to the game before, add new worlds without stories or even decent house, all things that modders do make better and for FREE... and ofc never fix bugs since patches cant be sold.
I mean... you want to make money out of the sims but you want to save time paying people to code something you can sell. What is the answer? Have someone model a few chairs in blender or maya, make amazing trailers that showcase stuff that is NOT in the game.
Who plays the sims these days? Most are teenies who never experienced good sims games, they never had anything better. Being social engineered by the corporative powers to be apolgists who will claim "making good games is bad for business so dont say bad things about the sims" and stuff like that.
This so called "realism crowd" who likes to pretend they are majority are really convenient to EA. Whenever players want more content and complain about the shallow and worthless stuff they add to the game, begging for stuff that made the sims what the sims IS they get vocal and help EA keep their nasty business practices.
They werent around when we had zombies spawning in full moon nights back in sims 3... I wonder where did they come from...
Im hopeful paralives will bury this franchise. Its dead already... what EA is doing is something like defiling the corpse of an once great game.
I mean they killed sim city... they killed it viciously and with extreme cruelty. Now it lays dead with so many other franchises.
This no longer the sims... its a husk, an empty and souless husk, a literal walking corpse.
Let the sims rest in peace.
What puzzles me most is how they make a game that doesnt give even half of the content its predecessors offered but fail SO BADLY in terms of stability. I been having freezes for nearly two years now lol. How? How they did?!?
They got rid of story progression, they got rid of open worlds, they removed style customization and sooooo much stuff, HOW they can screw so badly with a bunch of lame chairs?!?
My biggest issue with the Occult type packs is that most "realistic" players argue that Spooky stuff was part of the Occult, or Journey to Batuu is an Occult pack. Which they are not, Spooky stuff is a Halloween pack, and Journey to Batuu was a cash grab.
I didn't know people were saying that, that's strange. JtB might qualify as occult if you could become a Jedi, but they didn't even include the most cool part of star wars, so no force powers, not even close to qualifying as occult. I mean, it's hardly even fantasy as implemented. You never even fly in space other than in a rabbit hole and the lightsaber is so randomly usable, it's more like a souvenir from a gift shop than feels like a "jedi weapon."
You could change around just a few elements of JtB and it'd probably qualify as a simulation of the amusement park area Disney was building (or has built, I haven't followed it).
My biggest issue with the Occult type packs is that most "realistic" players argue that Spooky stuff was part of the Occult, or Journey to Batuu is an Occult pack. Which they are not, Spooky stuff is a Halloween pack, and Journey to Batuu was a cash grab.
I didn't know people were saying that, that's strange. JtB might qualify as occult if you could become a Jedi, but they didn't even include the most cool part of star wars, so no force powers, not even close to qualifying as occult. I mean, it's hardly even fantasy as implemented. You never even fly in space other than in a rabbit hole and the lightsaber is so randomly usable, it's more like a souvenir from a gift shop than feels like a "jedi weapon."
You could change around just a few elements of JtB and it'd probably qualify as a simulation of the amusement park area Disney was building (or has built, I haven't followed it).
Exactly, if JTB had a Jedi/Sith Occult life-state, I think fewer people would be complaining about it. But since it's just an ad for Disney, it deserves every ounce of criticism left at its feet.
Give our Vampires back their fangs!!! Reverse the Nerf!!! Occult simmers should not be shoved aside for the "realism players"! It's time Occult lovers/players started to demand equal treatment. #JusticeForOccults
meanwhile we get, yet again, MORE country/cottage aesthetic as if we don't already have a catalog saturated with it. This new EP could have easily been a GP.
I don't know if I agree with you on that. Certainly, it's better (to me) than the modern, Ikea style furniture that has been done to death, imo. I'm so sick of it, I could scream. There are other furniture and decorating styles in this world, Sims team!
Exactly, if JTB had a Jedi/Sith Occult life-state, I think fewer people would be complaining about it. But since it's just an ad for Disney, it deserves every ounce of criticism left at its feet.
Agreed! It's sad how much of a waste of priorities it was due to marketing. I mean, I'm not a superfan of star wars like some people are, but I like it enough over the years (enough I'm currently replaying Kotor 2, now there's a star wars game) and it boggles my mind that out of all the star warsy things they could have done with JtB, they chose the often poorly received sequel trilogy as the setting for it and did no jedi/force kind of power tree. I mean, they have the framework for powers with vampires, spellcasters, fame, but because it was just an ad for Disney, it had virtually none of the stuff that is most memorable about star wars.
Sometimes I am just stunned at the level of cynical marketing that this game does at the cost of making interesting features. It can feel at times like this game is a testing ground to see what EA can get away with, while still raking in the dough. And then in contrast, you have the pushback of what feels like a sincere effort to improve the game, which is probably due to some devs who actually care about the series pushing for it, along with the constant intense feedback from players who like the series. I imagine the higher ups and the rank and file devs don't necessarily see this game in the same way.
Occults are such a staple of the series, it's really they're kinda forgotten in this iteration of the game.
The Sims 3 had a ton of occults, at least one per EP. Some of them were 🐸🐸🐸🐸 (Vampires in Late Night), but some of them were AMAZING (Aliens, Plumbots). Ad the end of the day, there was a huge quantity of occults, even if the quality wasn't always that great.
TS4 Vampires was a step in the right direction. If you're going to make an entire pack dedicated to an occult, you better do them right. Spellcasters were kinda disappointing. They're more or less like Witches in TS3 Supernatural, they even have a similar amount of spells (I think it was 19 in Supernatural and 21 in Realm of Magic) and considerably fewer potions. It just goes to show that having an entire pack dedicated to an occult does NOT garantee that the occult will be done right or better than in previous games. TS4 Vampires was a success because they actually put some effort into making it as good as they could. I just don't feel the same effort was put into Realm of Magic.
It's been almost two years since RoM was released and it seems they have abandoned the idea of occults. No occults in EPs (other than Servos, I guess) and no packs centered around new occults (or improving existing ones as Paranormal could've done). At this rate, The Sims 4 is going to end up with the worse selection of occults out of all Sims games, and that's just really sad.
I personally don't like occults... They're okay sometimes but I really wish we could have a toggle to switch them off from saves we don't want them randomly spawning in. I hate having aliens constantly spawn in my saves because they're my least favorite occult in Sims 4.
I like to think the team are pro occults, but I must admit it doesn't always feel that way. Vampires is my favourite pack, but I miss the good old days when supernatural players didn't have to wait years for a bit of gameplay. I feel like I have been waiting forever for werewolves, but I am still hoping they will be added soon. I would also love hybrids to be supported so my vampire can learn alchemy, but sadly I don't expect this to happen. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I can't see a reason why werewolves and fairies won't make a return though. I just hope we don't have to wait too much longer.
Comments
I put "realism" in quotes because that aversion to occults also extends to elements that present more negative outcomes for sims -- things like death types, debuffs, and generally other things that can make sims miserable. Those things are also part of a realistic experience, but they get in the way of the playstyle where one's perfect supermodel sims live their perfect nuclear family lives with their perfect children. It's fine if that's how one wants to play The Sims 4, but it shouldn't be the only way to play it. It's why vampires don't visit anymore. It's why the weirder content get partitioned off into dark little corners, and it makes me wonder if there will even be occult lifestates in a hypothetical Sims 5.
Agree to disagree, it's a waste of an entire EP in my opinion when we have worlds and items that are already "country/cottage" aesthetic. Time for something different.
And that's the thing, I don't even care about occults as much as having more unique worlds, items, and gameplay. Everything is so plain, suburbia, white picket fence perfection. Why not a world like Magic Town? Aurora Skies? Lunar Lakes? Midnight Hollow? Any of the locations from World Adventures? Base some packs around those, doesn't even have to be occult related. Everything is so plain and boring.
Gotta say, this makes sense, and it's kind of infuriating. My understanding is that Sims could originally date/romance/woohoo (etc) with Grim, up to a certain point when suddenly that gameplay aspect was removed (seriously, why?!). And then people start complaining about vampires visiting their households - well okay, you bought the vampires game pack, you expected to have vampires in the game, what did you think you were getting just some nifty Cas and Build items & a bunch of sparklepires otherwise? Don't even get me started on Island Living & the ability for Sims to get a tan: so besides mermaids being tacked on as an afterthought from the sounds of it, vampires are nerfed from visiting, deaths other than dying from old age occur rarely, you can't get your freak on with Grim anymore, but staying out in the sun to get a tan is just dandy - guess risk aversion in gameplay only applies when it's something that doesn't fit with a barbie clone lifestyle or has anything to do with occults. Yeah this stuff bugs me, a lot. Don't pretend you* want realism in your game play, when what you really want is a perfectly instagram filtered sims life, complete with the perfectly instagram filtered sims family that you can look down your perfectly instagram filtered noses with at the occult players.
(*you as in general, all encompassing 'you', not singling out any one individual or group of individuals).
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.
Ive noticed that too and I find it perplexing. Ive seen suggestions that would seem more like parts of everyday life than outright negatives, but are argued against as "too realistic."
Say for example "sims taking out a loan to buy a house or restaurant, and if they fail to pay the loan, they lose the house/restaurant or repoman takes items to repay the debt."
Or, say you want your sim to become a doctor. Well, in the real world doctors go to school and get a medical degree before becoming doctors. If you have University, sims will never progress far into the Doctor career field without a medical degree (or cheats). Just playing chess to level up your logic will do nothing.
Sims getting paid everyday? Most people are paid bi-weekly or weekly, with a certain amount taken out for taxes. That 2k check your sim just got? Wrong! 1500 is actually the take home pay.
Three realistic scenarios, yet someone could look at this and say "that's too realistic." Now that person has the right to say that, but this game is always flooded with requests for more realism, and these scenarios Ive mentioned are pretty realistic. When does it suddenly become "too realistic"? Why is a line being drawn? Is it because these scenarios dont immediately add to the quality of life to a sim's family? Real life isnt all sunshine and buttercups, and to me, just choosing all the best parts of real life and ignoring the not so best parts of real life isnt very realistic. I find it pretty naive. If you ask me, an actual vampire at my doorstep is just as unrealistic as me calling up the hospital for a job with no qualifications, and being offered a job as a surgeon.
I dont fault anyone that just wants their sims to live the life in a perfect suburban home or an instagram celebrity, but there's alot of cherry picking going on as to what gets to be "realistic". You can't have the good and pretend that the bad doesnt even exist.
Yeah, I got downvoted into oblivion on Youtube and Reddit for saying: "I'm glad we're getting a farming pack, can we please get werewolves and fairies now? Since people have been asking for them for the same amount of time as farming."
This fandom makes me scratch my head honestly like maybe it wasn't the right place to add my comment, but it's still a valid ask. :-/ XD
I was thinking about fairy fans and how they must be feeling right now. We're at the tail end The Sims 4's development cycle, and werewolves haven't even come yet. What are the chances that fairies will make it in time? That's really unfortunate.
Yeah, we're nearing the final hurrah for the sims 4, it's about time the missing occults were added. I can't help but feel like this chapter in the franchise will go out with a whimper instead of a bang...
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha your comment made me rofl - like pointing at your face and really laughing out loud. I mean, 'maybe they'll even be done well' totally cracked me up. To be fair, it all started so promising with vampires. And sure, I later noticed there were aliens hidden in my Get to Work Pack. And ghosts were in the Base Game (added post release of course). But witches got mutated into these 'spell casters', plant sims are about as interesting as a head of cabbage, and don't get me started on the mermen... Then I re-read OP's post and totally get how they're feeling... 7 years... I feel sad now
Possibly why it stands out. One of the few times 4 bordered on an element of seriousness, I think. I mean, they rode the line with some of it, like the mood changing, which can (oopsie
And they don't sparkle. Thank god.
The ones in TS3 are the worst ones in my opinion.
I hoped Cottage Living would come with a full plantsim lifestate, I feel that would make sense. They wouldn't even take much resources to develop, since there's already basic coding for them, and they don't need any skill tree. Just the ability to grow plantbabies, have leaves instead of hair, and some special interactions and abilities with plants.
And for those who prefer to play more realistic, the way to become a plantsim would work like in previous games. Either turn into one by overusing pesticides, or by eating forbidden fruit. And there wouldn't be any plantsim townies.
In Sims 2, certain expansions gave you the option to seek out the occult, in relatively normal game play. Maybe except for Witches from Apartment Life who hung out at lots. In Sims 2 pets, the Leader of the Pack had to befriended before a Sim could be turned into a Werewolf. It balanced both "realistic" play, and allowed occult Sims to choose whether they wanted to pursue the Occult or not.
Sims 3 had an entire Supernatural Pack to itself as well as the world they could live in. Except for the sparkling vampires, I adored this pack. I liked how the different phases of the moon could effect events in that world as well, and how on the full moon zombies would pop up.
Then there is Sims 4. Vampires is Sims 4 were actually well thought out with strengths and weaknesses. Which I enjoy. After that, it seems to have been kind of downhill from that. Get to Work had Aliens, and when I got it, they toned down the Alien abductions. With the newest update that seems to have come back, which I was really happy about. Mermaids seemed to be tacked on last minute, and Mages in Realm of Magic could have been pushed so much more. They have a similar set up to Vampires, but less thought out.
My biggest issue with the Occult type packs is that most "realistic" players argue that Spooky stuff was part of the Occult, or Journey to Batuu is an Occult pack. Which they are not, Spooky stuff is a Halloween pack, and Journey to Batuu was a cash grab.
I really want werewolves, fairies, or a world that is solely an occult world, not like the ones we got for Vampires or Realm of Magic. Or at least give us more to do in those worlds.
But yeah... occults suffer now.
In the good times when the sims was made by people who love it, I mean, it was their creation, things were different.
There was a high focus on gameplay as gameplay is what gives the most fun. Interactions, occults, easter eggs... mysteries, witch doctors :P npcs had real personalities, real stories.
Ofc, that all is gone after filthy EA took over.
You see, gameplay takes a lot of time, work, coding, patching... to em filthy EA pigs they see it as a bad thing. Love is counter productive in terms of money grubbing. Adding werewolves or mummies for example,giving a skill tree to mermaids or making aliens relevant, all of this would take time and effort from several professionals... that means money... theyd pay coders more to add fun to the game. But fun doesnt fill their pockets.
So what EA does? Screw gameplay, add chairs, add hairstyles, add new dresses... fool the player base by addin a photography dlc, another job about changing outfits, another about using build mode to redecorate rooms, make kits selling assets we were too greedy to add to the game before, add new worlds without stories or even decent house, all things that modders do make better and for FREE... and ofc never fix bugs since patches cant be sold.
I mean... you want to make money out of the sims but you want to save time paying people to code something you can sell. What is the answer? Have someone model a few chairs in blender or maya, make amazing trailers that showcase stuff that is NOT in the game.
Who plays the sims these days? Most are teenies who never experienced good sims games, they never had anything better. Being social engineered by the corporative powers to be apolgists who will claim "making good games is bad for business so dont say bad things about the sims" and stuff like that.
This so called "realism crowd" who likes to pretend they are majority are really convenient to EA. Whenever players want more content and complain about the shallow and worthless stuff they add to the game, begging for stuff that made the sims what the sims IS they get vocal and help EA keep their nasty business practices.
They werent around when we had zombies spawning in full moon nights back in sims 3... I wonder where did they come from...
Im hopeful paralives will bury this franchise. Its dead already... what EA is doing is something like defiling the corpse of an once great game.
I mean they killed sim city... they killed it viciously and with extreme cruelty. Now it lays dead with so many other franchises.
This no longer the sims... its a husk, an empty and souless husk, a literal walking corpse.
Let the sims rest in peace.
What puzzles me most is how they make a game that doesnt give even half of the content its predecessors offered but fail SO BADLY in terms of stability. I been having freezes for nearly two years now lol. How? How they did?!?
They got rid of story progression, they got rid of open worlds, they removed style customization and sooooo much stuff, HOW they can screw so badly with a bunch of lame chairs?!?
I didn't know people were saying that, that's strange. JtB might qualify as occult if you could become a Jedi, but they didn't even include the most cool part of star wars, so no force powers, not even close to qualifying as occult. I mean, it's hardly even fantasy as implemented. You never even fly in space other than in a rabbit hole and the lightsaber is so randomly usable, it's more like a souvenir from a gift shop than feels like a "jedi weapon."
You could change around just a few elements of JtB and it'd probably qualify as a simulation of the amusement park area Disney was building (or has built, I haven't followed it).
Exactly, if JTB had a Jedi/Sith Occult life-state, I think fewer people would be complaining about it. But since it's just an ad for Disney, it deserves every ounce of criticism left at its feet.
I don't know if I agree with you on that. Certainly, it's better (to me) than the modern, Ikea style furniture that has been done to death, imo. I'm so sick of it, I could scream. There are other furniture and decorating styles in this world, Sims team!
Agreed! It's sad how much of a waste of priorities it was due to marketing. I mean, I'm not a superfan of star wars like some people are, but I like it enough over the years (enough I'm currently replaying Kotor 2, now there's a star wars game) and it boggles my mind that out of all the star warsy things they could have done with JtB, they chose the often poorly received sequel trilogy as the setting for it and did no jedi/force kind of power tree. I mean, they have the framework for powers with vampires, spellcasters, fame, but because it was just an ad for Disney, it had virtually none of the stuff that is most memorable about star wars.
Sometimes I am just stunned at the level of cynical marketing that this game does at the cost of making interesting features. It can feel at times like this game is a testing ground to see what EA can get away with, while still raking in the dough. And then in contrast, you have the pushback of what feels like a sincere effort to improve the game, which is probably due to some devs who actually care about the series pushing for it, along with the constant intense feedback from players who like the series. I imagine the higher ups and the rank and file devs don't necessarily see this game in the same way.
The Sims 3 had a ton of occults, at least one per EP. Some of them were 🐸🐸🐸🐸 (Vampires in Late Night), but some of them were AMAZING (Aliens, Plumbots). Ad the end of the day, there was a huge quantity of occults, even if the quality wasn't always that great.
TS4 Vampires was a step in the right direction. If you're going to make an entire pack dedicated to an occult, you better do them right. Spellcasters were kinda disappointing. They're more or less like Witches in TS3 Supernatural, they even have a similar amount of spells (I think it was 19 in Supernatural and 21 in Realm of Magic) and considerably fewer potions. It just goes to show that having an entire pack dedicated to an occult does NOT garantee that the occult will be done right or better than in previous games. TS4 Vampires was a success because they actually put some effort into making it as good as they could. I just don't feel the same effort was put into Realm of Magic.
It's been almost two years since RoM was released and it seems they have abandoned the idea of occults. No occults in EPs (other than Servos, I guess) and no packs centered around new occults (or improving existing ones as Paranormal could've done). At this rate, The Sims 4 is going to end up with the worse selection of occults out of all Sims games, and that's just really sad.
I will not invest in Sims 5 until I see that it has quality occult gameplay. It is what mainly draws me, I wish to see that it will be supported.
If werewolves are not added after teasing with portraits and statues in previous packs I do not believe that I will continue to Sims 5.