In my opinion another useless feature that is going to be sitting there to be forgotten about (just like the story mode in CAS).
It's kinda sad and hilarious that they always claim to 'hear' what the community wants and that these things are -always- 'on top of their minds', however yet they fail to deliver time after time after time.
Kinda getting the feeling they are stringing the community along until the end of The Sims 4 at this point.
Instead of giving the community what it actually wants (for example Cars, Updated Babies, Story Progression, more overall depth when it comes to the Sims themselves and the gameplay) we get simple (in my opinion pointless) User Interface features such as the 'Scenario' update. Like, this game has bigger problems and still a lot of stuff missing that have been requested for years by now, yet they still prioritize this?!
At this point I feel like them just coming out telling the community that they don't have any intentions to update babies, bring back cars, add story progression, add more depth when it comes to gameplay instead of just telling the community how much they 'hear' us and how it's 'Always on top of their minds' yet not delivering.
It's been 7 years already, this is getting more annoying every time they announce a new patch. (just to see there is again nothing big in them that has been requested by the community for forever)
Also the billion pages of people giving them feedback on how to make the game better and what they want to see, at this point I think it's all useless. They seem to have their own plan and nothing is going to change it.
It's just so annoying.
And to think about we're not even getting anymore packs (except for *cough*kits*cough*) this year.. the scenario update isn't even worth that. It's not even a decent trade off.
I believe a lot of Simmers get stuck in their same old ruts of doing things just one way every time to get to their goals.
If these new scenarios take Simmers out of their ruts and get them to look at the game in a different way, and use some of the other commands that are there to be used they might be quite useful. I am thinking of a speech by one of the past makers of the game who showed the depth the game could get to. Maybe Maxis might be working this way with Sims 4?
It might even be enjoyable to do a murder or solve it, (a la Christie) this way. if they give it more depth.
In my opinion another useless feature that is going to be sitting there to be forgotten about (just like the story mode in CAS).
It's kinda sad and hilarious that they always claim to 'hear' what the community wants and that these things are -always- 'on top of their minds', however yet they fail to deliver time after time after time.
Kinda getting the feeling they are stringing the community along until the end of The Sims 4 at this point.
Instead of giving the community what it actually wants (for example Cars, Updated Babies, Story Progression, more overall depth when it comes to the Sims themselves and the gameplay) we get simple (in my opinion pointless) User Interface features such as the 'Scenario' update. Like, this game has bigger problems and still a lot of stuff missing that have been requested for years by now, yet they still prioritize this?!
At this point I feel like them just coming out telling the community that they don't have any intentions to update babies, bring back cars, add story progression, add more depth when it comes to gameplay instead of just telling the community how much they 'hear' us and how it's 'Always on top of their minds' yet not delivering.
It's been 7 years already, this is getting more annoying every time they announce a new patch. (just to see there is again nothing big in them that has been requested by the community for forever)
Also the billion pages of people giving them feedback on how to make the game better and what they want to see, at this point I think it's all useless. They seem to have their own plan and nothing is going to change it.
It's just so annoying.
And to think about we're not even getting anymore packs (except for *cough*kits*cough*) this year.. the scenario update isn't even worth that. It's not even a decent trade off.
It really felt like not a lot had happened during this recent stream... It was a whole lot of "we are looking into" or "we are doing research" for things that they had talked about already in previous livestreams.
It's starting to feel like an empty buzzword and some features that they have added during these 7 years have been so limited that I'm not sure it matters what they say anyway because it could end up being something entirely different.
For all that we know this Scenario feature was their answer to the sims411 thread where they asked for different ways that they could add more depth and challenge to the game.
Look Maxis...I'm not angry...I'm just disappointed and confused. Focus your effort on where the budget is allocated, this did not feel like you had a lot of people and money behind it. Don't make promises to the community for things that you don't have financial backing and development for.
We're getting a Scenarios blog on Friday but I thought I'd do a transcript of SimGuruDuck's Scenario walk through.
In the next base game update, we’re going to be adding a new feature called Scenarios. These are a new way to play The Sims. We’ll be providing players with different situations to work towards an outcome. There’s going to be different outcomes for many different scenarios, and it will be up to you to figure out how you’re going to achieve those outcomes. There’s going to be more than one way to complete a scenario. Just like in real life you never know how the story will go. How you get there is completely up to you. In this next patch update, coming up for you next week, you’ll be seeing two brand new scenarios. Those scenarios are called Making Money and Finding Love After A Breakup. Making Money places your sim in a situation where they have 0 simoleans in their bank account and to complete the scenario you have to work your way up to 1 million simoleans. How you get there is completely up to you. You could choose a noble route to work your way through hard work, or you could get 1 million simoleans in other ways. So, it’s really up to you how you want to get to your goal.
Once you’ve downloaded the update, you’ll be greeted by this new Scenario button on the Main menu.
To access the scenarios, click on it and you’ll see this wonderful popup labelled Challenge Scenarios.
This first batch of scenarios we’re releasing have a bit of a challenge aspect to them so we’re labelling these as Challenge Scenarios, for the time being. As you can see, we’ve got Making Money here and Finding Love After A Breakup for our first launch scenarios. Today I’m going to walk you through Making Money.
To access the scenario you click on the view button and then you’ll see the description here.
It will tell you a little bit about what you’re getting yourself into. Please remember for Making Money your household funds will be set to 0 after you’ve moved into a lot so be careful. You’ll also be able to see any household requirements that may be present for the scenario. As you can see for this one there is nothing listed. There are no requirements for this one. And then you will see some potential outcomes. There are some ones that are hidden too but these are some of the ones you’ll be able to pursue. As you can see at the bottom you’ll have the option to start from a new save or start with an existing save. As a note though at launch you will only be able to start a new scenario from a brand-new household. This is something we’re aware of and we’re working to include in a future update to this feature as we move forward.
So let’s start a new save today and this will bring you right into Create A Sim. You’ll notice in Create A Sim that it looks pretty familiar except we’ve got this nice little menu up in the upper right that will tell you if there are any household requirements to start the scenario. For Making Money there are no requirements but for other scenarios you will see maybe add two adult sims, three child sims and that will all show up here and it will let you know if you’ve met the requirements before it allows you to proceed.
So for this scenario you can start to think about how you want to play from the very beginning. Selects fortune aspiration, fabulously wealthy. Traits are genius, perfectionist, and self-assured.
From here on out there are no big changes for this update so you’ll be able to select a lot. We will allow you to select between furnished, unfurnished, and bulldoze lot, but remember for Making Money your household simoleans will be set to 0 the second you start the scenario. So if you choose unfurnished or bulldoze lot you could have a very difficult challenge ahead. For today though why don’t we choose furnished and dive right in.
We are now in live mode with our scenario started.
You’ll see this wonderful notification in the upper right corner and that will tell you that you’ve started a new scenario. We’ve also added a lesson here that you can go through and read a little bit more about scenarios. If you’ll notice this one note here more types of scenarios will be added over time. That’s right. We will be adding more scenarios after launch. Some of them will be available all the time and some of them will be available for a limited time.
Once you’ve entered this point in live mode it’s basically up to you to figure out your destiny and how you’re going to reach your goal you’re working toward.
A couple of other additions here. In the upper left hand corner you’ll see one of your outcomes that you’re working towards. It’s up to you basically to choose your destiny.
Once you’ve completed a scenario and you’ve achieved one of the outcomes you’ll actually be rewarded with satisfaction points. There’ll be a nice little celebration moment and it will also show you some satisfaction points that are deposited into your reward store.
We’re going to be adding more scenarios over time and some new limited time scenarios that will be coming out shortly after launch are titled Too Many Toddlers and Perfectly Well Rounded so be on the lookout for those.
This first batch of scenarios we’re releasing have a bit of a challenge aspect to them so we’re labelling these as Challenge Scenarios, for the time being. As you can see, we’ve got Making Money here and Finding Love After A Breakup for our first launch scenarios. Today I’m going to walk you through Making Money.
Interesting... I missed the part where they have challenge scenarios specifically labeled as such like they are going to be different type of scenarios. Maybe we'll get story scenarios that aren't really challenging they just are a base to start a story off of.
I have to admit I've never been interested in doing a rags to riches challenge but I am somewhat intrigued by the Making Money scenario. What interests me about this scenario is that there is a definable goal to be accomplished and the game actually keeps track of your progress. I also like the idea of working toward the same goal and sharing with other forum members. It could be fun to have a Making Money thread and share progress and pics.
Not what I was expecting (no, I was not expecting cars or free babies) , but I will save my judgement till I know more.
I can't help but think they chose the wrong "scenario" in that stream to have a walk thru, tho. As so many, myself included, do play rags to riches style. Would of make some difference if that scenario would of had limitations, like cheating money not allowed (simply money cheat would not work or cheeat window not even open while scenario on) , and maybe only part time jobs are allowed, just couple of things what came to my mind.
BUt, in the other hand, when these scenarios come to the point they can be added to already existing sims, I would like to think at least some would "spice" the lives of my rotational save families, as they are mostly pretty much done all goals I have set them to have, and maybe some things like this make me to try something new, not in my usual comfort zone.
But again, I will wait and see
My love, my love, my fearless love, I will not say goodbye..
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
I was thinking they might be needing this new feature in an upcoming pack and decided two throw to basic szenarios at us now in order to have something new to announce. Kind of what they did with bunk beds.
Anyhow, aspiration points as a reward for completing a scenario is just such a bad choice. I mean I'm aware they cut whims, but even without them a household that managed to earn a million will have more than enough aspiration points at that point. Also - at least in my game - there is always such an abundance of aspiration points and they are kind of pointless as there aren't enough interesting aspiration rewards + they feel meaningless because there is neighter a way of losing points no do they affect your Sims overall mood like they did in the Sims 2.
I miss platinum status and the other ones so much, it was something that would actually let you bond with your Sims as you literally saw how good you were taking care of what they wanted all the time. They felt like actual personalities.
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Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
I was thinking they might be needing this new feature in an upcoming pack and decided to throw to basic szenarios at us now in order to have something new to announce. Kind of what they did with bunk beds.
Anyhow, aspiration points as a reward for completing a scenario is just such a bad choice. I mean I'm aware they cut whims, but even without them a household that managed to earn a million will have more than enough aspiration points at that point. Also - at least in my game - there is always such an abundance of aspiration points and they are kind of pointless as there aren't enough interesting aspiration rewards + they feel meaningless because there is neighter a way of losing points no do they affect your Sims overall mood like they did in the Sims 2.
I miss platinum status and the other ones so much, it was something that would actually let you bond with your Sims as you literally saw how good you were taking care of what they wanted all the time. They felt like actual personalities.
I think the whole aspiration points system needs a whole rework.
Off-topic, and I'm sure folks have discussed this already, but I'm beginning to become curious about how the development of the game works. In Carl's Sim Guides' video on it, that's where I first learned of it, at 1:19, he reported that the window from the trailer for the loft kit wasn't actually in the kit and folks asked if it would come out. They replied late November. For a window? This has happened multiple times now, even modders will create something for the game in one sitting, like skins, but for the Sims team, it took them a very long time to update them. Why? I don't understand how people with so fewer resources and assistance are continuing to out-perform the devs.
Part of that is probably because modders can decide what to make and when. If Maxis has spent all of their budget for a month on creating other assets for upcoming packs and patches, the window is going to wait until they can spend the resources on it.
Another part is probably restrictions in their monthly patch pipeline. I don't know what those restrictions are, so it could be anything from technical restrictions to quality assurance to liaising with consoles. That's where this new express content system would come in; I assume it makes it more possible for them to say "Whoops, we overlooked this window. We'll have it in your game within a few weeks".
The end result is still that modders can add something simple into the game faster than the devs can, which doesn't make them look good. However, you do raise an interesting point, the problem could be how the content is delivered. We have to manually go to a modder's site or where they've uploaded their content, download it, and install it. Updates are shipped to us without us having to do much of anything, so getting that process to work could probably take a lot of time.
Still, knowing that they're not releasing any new packs to the game in exchange for updating and improving the basegame is fine and understandable, I've no problem with that idea. But then seeing that said update is rather minimal and lacking in substance primarily because the game lacks said substance (someone made the point that "finding love after a break-up" could only be interesting if there was more meaning and reason in how attraction works in the game) is a more than a bit fustrating. Heck, finding love could work if emotion was more meaningful. The scenario could be that your Sim has been broken up with and is in a jaded kind of depression and you have to work on building their confidence back up over time and find someone new to love. Because this is not in the game, I don't see the point, personally.
Instead of adding in something players already do by doing challenges, why not fix Whims? Whims were a huge part of my gameplay in TS3 and in this game, I turned them off years ago. Haven't flipped them back on since. The reward for completing scenarios is lacking as well. Through many of the easy Aspirations, satisfaction points are quite easy to come by. So I don't see the point once again.
Or instead, a feature that was in TS3 was Skill Challenges. After mastering a skill, they could do some long-term challenge that rewarded the Sim with a new kind of ability and perhaps a social or something. Why not add that instead? For me, it would eliminate the kind of playstyle you can do where you just max out a skill and move on. In TS3, I'd max out a skill, start learning the next one, but continue to occasionally come back to the first skill to try to beat the challenges.
Long post, but the point is, this update feels more like a band-aid to a problem that needs surgery. The idea isn't totally flawed, but it's seemingly so lacking right now, I don't know why it was prioritized over other player concerns.
Maxis won't do something complex because it would be a lot of work and it could break the game.
It will probably be as simple as Aspiration and Lot Challenge features.
Scenario is a Household Challenge Aspiration
They may not want to mess with the performance of the game and that for me is not necessarily an good thing to say or another way is to say they want to stay in the safe zone and not outside the box.
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If they don't expand on the Scenarios, then yes, they're going to be bad. Requesting that they not add more when they haven't even seen the actual (not forum/twittersphere/reddit) reaction to the feature is kinda setting them up to fail.
(And there's enough overlap in on-line groups that I'm still confident in saying that the naysayers may have a plurality, but are not actually a majority of the *total* player base of The Sims.)
Of the current four we know about, two aren't the sort of scenarios I'm interested in exploring, one I've explored before (though again, I've never actually had one million in reserve in one generation. I might have earned one million over all in one generation, but I would need the game to tell me that - oh, look, it will) and the last one... we don't know enough about yet, but I'm expecting some sort of skill challenge.
I need at least two more that aren't kid care/romance oriented to judge them properly.
I mean, I don't need this feature. I have plenty of my own stories to tell, my own scenarios to spin. But ... they might present a scenario I hadn't thought about that I'd find interesting. Give me a new way to look at a particular aspect of the game.
So if you want to judge them now, that's your prerogative. I don't want my chance to judge them fairly cut off because someone doesn't like the idea. I mean, I can always choose to not use it.
Asking them to not make any more scenarios is a little pre mature when we don't even know what the other scenarios are like. Plus they could really add a lot more interesting scenarios in the future.
This could be potentially good.
Any of these scenarios that we create ourselves have one problem. There are no surprises, ever, because we are the ones inventing it.
It's like building a World Adventures tomb that you really can't enjoy because you already know where all the traps are.
So what EA could bring to the table is some surprises and dynamism, along with ease of set up.
Too Many Toddlers = the 7 toddler challenge...what was that called, the Orphanage Challenge or something like that? One adult had to raise 7 toddlers to YA or teen or something where they could take care of themselves. I think it was Adult in Sims 2, but I could be wrong.
Anywho, I think this has the potential to be interesting, but right now it feels like a quickie. And not even a satisfying one. Like a vanilla cupcake for your birthday instead of a cake. And I like vanilla, but vanilla cupcakes are the epitome of meh. Especially with white frosting.
I'm quite disappointed with the scenarios, but I still want to think that maybe later down the road there would come interesting ones. They got the simple living lot challenge right in Cottage Living. Still if they don't make scenarios work for rotational play and already existing sims, I don't see myself using this feature.
We don't need scenarios. They need fix whims and make them meaningful instead of just hiding them by default and also make aspirations more meaningful again. They've been turned into little more than mini tutorials for the packs. Both of these is a great waste of potential gameplay
I miss platinum status and the other ones so much, it was something that would actually let you bond with your Sims as you literally saw how good you were taking care of what they wanted all the time. They felt like actual personalities.
Oh me too! I had so much feeling for my sims if they went into aspiration failure and I felt so proud to reach platinum! I'd love those back.
I am with the majority of posts in this thread. This is just another example of EA fail. Taking an idea that the community has done for years and try to make it seem NEW. It's the easy way out. (What a surprise, I know). I've never done it but I'm sure somewhere a player has, but I'm willing to bet I could marry two sims, divorce them, and then re-marry them in one sim day. Where's the challenge in that?
This would have made me interested: Give the player the option of turning "scenarios" on or off when starting a new game. Develop maybe 6 "scenarios." Then have those scenarios non-selectable. Random. In other words, not player controlled. Have a scenario randomly insert into your game. The player would never know what scenario is going to happen. Would it be perfect? No. But at least that would provide some sort of randomness into what is an extremely predictable and boring game. Unfortunately that would require more than simply re-hashing an existing idea and calling it "new."
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain
This may be how they will keep Sims 4 up and running as there may be less packs, over time Imo more and more packs will cause Sims 4 to be bloated and if proper tweaking is not preformed it may have an paradoxical effect. But little additions like this as well as those kits seem to enable them to do that w/o stressing the game.
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We're getting a Scenarios blog on Friday but I thought I'd do a transcript of SimGuruDuck's Scenario walk through.
In the next base game update, we’re going to be adding a new feature called Scenarios. These are a new way to play The Sims. We’ll be providing players with different situations to work towards an outcome. There’s going to be different outcomes for many different scenarios, and it will be up to you to figure out how you’re going to achieve those outcomes. There’s going to be more than one way to complete a scenario. Just like in real life you never know how the story will go. How you get there is completely up to you. In this next patch update, coming up for you next week, you’ll be seeing two brand new scenarios. Those scenarios are called Making Money and Finding Love After A Breakup. Making Money places your sim in a situation where they have 0 simoleans in their bank account and to complete the scenario you have to work your way up to 1 million simoleans. How you get there is completely up to you. You could choose a noble route to work your way through hard work, or you could get 1 million simoleans in other ways. So, it’s really up to you how you want to get to your goal.
Once you’ve downloaded the update, you’ll be greeted by this new Scenario button on the Main menu.
To access the scenarios, click on it and you’ll see this wonderful popup labelled Challenge Scenarios.
This first batch of scenarios we’re releasing have a bit of a challenge aspect to them so we’re labelling these as Challenge Scenarios, for the time being. As you can see, we’ve got Making Money here and Finding Love After A Breakup for our first launch scenarios. Today I’m going to walk you through Making Money.
To access the scenario you click on the view button and then you’ll see the description here.
It will tell you a little bit about what you’re getting yourself into. Please remember for Making Money your household funds will be set to 0 after you’ve moved into a lot so be careful. You’ll also be able to see any household requirements that may be present for the scenario. As you can see for this one there is nothing listed. There are no requirements for this one. And then you will see some potential outcomes. There are some ones that are hidden too but these are some of the ones you’ll be able to pursue. As you can see at the bottom you’ll have the option to start from a new save or start with an existing save. As a note though at launch you will only be able to start a new scenario from a brand-new household. This is something we’re aware of and we’re working to include in a future update to this feature as we move forward.
So let’s start a new save today and this will bring you right into Create A Sim. You’ll notice in Create A Sim that it looks pretty familiar except we’ve got this nice little menu up in the upper right that will tell you if there are any household requirements to start the scenario. For Making Money there are no requirements but for other scenarios you will see maybe add two adult sims, three child sims and that will all show up here and it will let you know if you’ve met the requirements before it allows you to proceed.
So for this scenario you can start to think about how you want to play from the very beginning. Selects fortune aspiration, fabulously wealthy. Traits are genius, perfectionist, and self-assured.
From here on out there are no big changes for this update so you’ll be able to select a lot. We will allow you to select between furnished, unfurnished, and bulldoze lot, but remember for Making Money your household simoleans will be set to 0 the second you start the scenario. So if you choose unfurnished or bulldoze lot you could have a very difficult challenge ahead. For today though why don’t we choose furnished and dive right in.
We are now in live mode with our scenario started.
You’ll see this wonderful notification in the upper right corner and that will tell you that you’ve started a new scenario. We’ve also added a lesson here that you can go through and read a little bit more about scenarios. If you’ll notice this one note here more types of scenarios will be added over time. That’s right. We will be adding more scenarios after launch. Some of them will be available all the time and some of them will be available for a limited time.
Once you’ve entered this point in live mode it’s basically up to you to figure out your destiny and how you’re going to reach your goal you’re working toward.
A couple of other additions here. In the upper left hand corner you’ll see one of your outcomes that you’re working towards. It’s up to you basically to choose your destiny.
Once you’ve completed a scenario and you’ve achieved one of the outcomes you’ll actually be rewarded with satisfaction points. There’ll be a nice little celebration moment and it will also show you some satisfaction points that are deposited into your reward store.
We’re going to be adding more scenarios over time and some new limited time scenarios that will be coming out shortly after launch are titled Too Many Toddlers and Perfectly Well Rounded so be on the lookout for those.
Thanks for posting all that information. I just want to make a few points.
It seems Maxis is out of ideas for sandbox, life simulator gameplay. This is more the type of gameplay life simulator players avoid, though many players of The Sims, play community challenges but those have never been the reasons so many play the Life Simulator of The Sims. Maxis doesn't remember in my opinion.
This would never be something I play in these games because if I want official challenges I would load up The Sims Medieval. A lot more depth to those scenarios.
I guess if TS4 is to survive another fiver or six years they have to do something. But it all seems like this is more in tune with what people would want on a console game format and or on a mobile device. It's good they state there are many ways to arrive at the goal but still this is more of the RPG mindset of these developers. Again.
It might have been better to wait until they could have implemented playing these with a New household before they rush this out. Because I'm sure at some points saves are going to be messed up when they add that feature, too. Don't serve the cake, meal, food before it's done sort of thing. Once they have to go back and add play with a New household on the UI, I'm almost positive something will break, and should have waited until they had all that under their belt.
Maxis is out of life simulating ideas. It's why they move toward RPG type gameplay, Identity representation, and so many other things that don't actually offer much life simulating but just more goals while no matter who the Sim is supposed to be, they are all the same. Sigh. And they don't remember what in the world a failure state looks like and why so many ask for 'challenge' to this game, not more, harder to obtain goals. Sigh.....Maxis if players get their money for their Sim any other way (what crooked ways are there?) are their Sims going to jail? I doubt it. Life Simulator is lost in TS4.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I actually do think they could have potential...I was initially very bummed about the announcement. However, the more I reflected, I realized that I do like the "career" or "scenario" mode in a lot of other simulation games. Whether it will work in the Sims...that remains to be seen. But if executed well, in ways players and modders cannot easily replicate on their own, these scenarios could add a lot to the game.
Separately, I hope EA doesn't read our desire for "more challenge in the base game" as "add challenges." They are NOT the same
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The Sims 4 General DiscussionIt's kinda sad and hilarious that they always claim to 'hear' what the community wants and that these things are -always- 'on top of their minds', however yet they fail to deliver time after time after time.
Kinda getting the feeling they are stringing the community along until the end of The Sims 4 at this point.
Instead of giving the community what it actually wants (for example Cars, Updated Babies, Story Progression, more overall depth when it comes to the Sims themselves and the gameplay) we get simple (in my opinion pointless) User Interface features such as the 'Scenario' update. Like, this game has bigger problems and still a lot of stuff missing that have been requested for years by now, yet they still prioritize this?!
At this point I feel like them just coming out telling the community that they don't have any intentions to update babies, bring back cars, add story progression, add more depth when it comes to gameplay instead of just telling the community how much they 'hear' us and how it's 'Always on top of their minds' yet not delivering.
It's been 7 years already, this is getting more annoying every time they announce a new patch. (just to see there is again nothing big in them that has been requested by the community for forever)
Also the billion pages of people giving them feedback on how to make the game better and what they want to see, at this point I think it's all useless. They seem to have their own plan and nothing is going to change it.
It's just so annoying.
And to think about we're not even getting anymore packs (except for *cough*kits*cough*) this year.. the scenario update isn't even worth that. It's not even a decent trade off.
I'm still a little confused about scenarios, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how it would work, but I'd never say no to a good murder mystery!
It really felt like not a lot had happened during this recent stream... It was a whole lot of "we are looking into" or "we are doing research" for things that they had talked about already in previous livestreams.
It's starting to feel like an empty buzzword and some features that they have added during these 7 years have been so limited that I'm not sure it matters what they say anyway because it could end up being something entirely different.
For all that we know this Scenario feature was their answer to the sims411 thread where they asked for different ways that they could add more depth and challenge to the game.
Look Maxis...I'm not angry...I'm just disappointed and confused. Focus your effort on where the budget is allocated, this did not feel like you had a lot of people and money behind it. Don't make promises to the community for things that you don't have financial backing and development for.
In the next base game update, we’re going to be adding a new feature called Scenarios. These are a new way to play The Sims. We’ll be providing players with different situations to work towards an outcome. There’s going to be different outcomes for many different scenarios, and it will be up to you to figure out how you’re going to achieve those outcomes. There’s going to be more than one way to complete a scenario. Just like in real life you never know how the story will go. How you get there is completely up to you. In this next patch update, coming up for you next week, you’ll be seeing two brand new scenarios. Those scenarios are called Making Money and Finding Love After A Breakup. Making Money places your sim in a situation where they have 0 simoleans in their bank account and to complete the scenario you have to work your way up to 1 million simoleans. How you get there is completely up to you. You could choose a noble route to work your way through hard work, or you could get 1 million simoleans in other ways. So, it’s really up to you how you want to get to your goal.
Once you’ve downloaded the update, you’ll be greeted by this new Scenario button on the Main menu.
To access the scenarios, click on it and you’ll see this wonderful popup labelled Challenge Scenarios.
This first batch of scenarios we’re releasing have a bit of a challenge aspect to them so we’re labelling these as Challenge Scenarios, for the time being. As you can see, we’ve got Making Money here and Finding Love After A Breakup for our first launch scenarios. Today I’m going to walk you through Making Money.
To access the scenario you click on the view button and then you’ll see the description here.
It will tell you a little bit about what you’re getting yourself into. Please remember for Making Money your household funds will be set to 0 after you’ve moved into a lot so be careful. You’ll also be able to see any household requirements that may be present for the scenario. As you can see for this one there is nothing listed. There are no requirements for this one. And then you will see some potential outcomes. There are some ones that are hidden too but these are some of the ones you’ll be able to pursue. As you can see at the bottom you’ll have the option to start from a new save or start with an existing save. As a note though at launch you will only be able to start a new scenario from a brand-new household. This is something we’re aware of and we’re working to include in a future update to this feature as we move forward.
So let’s start a new save today and this will bring you right into Create A Sim. You’ll notice in Create A Sim that it looks pretty familiar except we’ve got this nice little menu up in the upper right that will tell you if there are any household requirements to start the scenario. For Making Money there are no requirements but for other scenarios you will see maybe add two adult sims, three child sims and that will all show up here and it will let you know if you’ve met the requirements before it allows you to proceed.
So for this scenario you can start to think about how you want to play from the very beginning. Selects fortune aspiration, fabulously wealthy. Traits are genius, perfectionist, and self-assured.
From here on out there are no big changes for this update so you’ll be able to select a lot. We will allow you to select between furnished, unfurnished, and bulldoze lot, but remember for Making Money your household simoleans will be set to 0 the second you start the scenario. So if you choose unfurnished or bulldoze lot you could have a very difficult challenge ahead. For today though why don’t we choose furnished and dive right in.
We are now in live mode with our scenario started.
You’ll see this wonderful notification in the upper right corner and that will tell you that you’ve started a new scenario. We’ve also added a lesson here that you can go through and read a little bit more about scenarios. If you’ll notice this one note here more types of scenarios will be added over time. That’s right. We will be adding more scenarios after launch. Some of them will be available all the time and some of them will be available for a limited time.
Once you’ve entered this point in live mode it’s basically up to you to figure out your destiny and how you’re going to reach your goal you’re working toward.
A couple of other additions here. In the upper left hand corner you’ll see one of your outcomes that you’re working towards. It’s up to you basically to choose your destiny.
Once you’ve completed a scenario and you’ve achieved one of the outcomes you’ll actually be rewarded with satisfaction points. There’ll be a nice little celebration moment and it will also show you some satisfaction points that are deposited into your reward store.
We’re going to be adding more scenarios over time and some new limited time scenarios that will be coming out shortly after launch are titled Too Many Toddlers and Perfectly Well Rounded so be on the lookout for those.
Interesting... I missed the part where they have challenge scenarios specifically labeled as such like they are going to be different type of scenarios. Maybe we'll get story scenarios that aren't really challenging they just are a base to start a story off of.
I can't help but think they chose the wrong "scenario" in that stream to have a walk thru, tho. As so many, myself included, do play rags to riches style. Would of make some difference if that scenario would of had limitations, like cheating money not allowed (simply money cheat would not work or cheeat window not even open while scenario on) , and maybe only part time jobs are allowed, just couple of things what came to my mind.
BUt, in the other hand, when these scenarios come to the point they can be added to already existing sims, I would like to think at least some would "spice" the lives of my rotational save families, as they are mostly pretty much done all goals I have set them to have, and maybe some things like this make me to try something new, not in my usual comfort zone.
But again, I will wait and see
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
Anyhow, aspiration points as a reward for completing a scenario is just such a bad choice. I mean I'm aware they cut whims, but even without them a household that managed to earn a million will have more than enough aspiration points at that point. Also - at least in my game - there is always such an abundance of aspiration points and they are kind of pointless as there aren't enough interesting aspiration rewards + they feel meaningless because there is neighter a way of losing points no do they affect your Sims overall mood like they did in the Sims 2.
I miss platinum status and the other ones so much, it was something that would actually let you bond with your Sims as you literally saw how good you were taking care of what they wanted all the time. They felt like actual personalities.
I think the whole aspiration points system needs a whole rework.
The end result is still that modders can add something simple into the game faster than the devs can, which doesn't make them look good. However, you do raise an interesting point, the problem could be how the content is delivered. We have to manually go to a modder's site or where they've uploaded their content, download it, and install it. Updates are shipped to us without us having to do much of anything, so getting that process to work could probably take a lot of time.
Still, knowing that they're not releasing any new packs to the game in exchange for updating and improving the basegame is fine and understandable, I've no problem with that idea. But then seeing that said update is rather minimal and lacking in substance primarily because the game lacks said substance (someone made the point that "finding love after a break-up" could only be interesting if there was more meaning and reason in how attraction works in the game) is a more than a bit fustrating. Heck, finding love could work if emotion was more meaningful. The scenario could be that your Sim has been broken up with and is in a jaded kind of depression and you have to work on building their confidence back up over time and find someone new to love. Because this is not in the game, I don't see the point, personally.
Instead of adding in something players already do by doing challenges, why not fix Whims? Whims were a huge part of my gameplay in TS3 and in this game, I turned them off years ago. Haven't flipped them back on since. The reward for completing scenarios is lacking as well. Through many of the easy Aspirations, satisfaction points are quite easy to come by. So I don't see the point once again.
Or instead, a feature that was in TS3 was Skill Challenges. After mastering a skill, they could do some long-term challenge that rewarded the Sim with a new kind of ability and perhaps a social or something. Why not add that instead? For me, it would eliminate the kind of playstyle you can do where you just max out a skill and move on. In TS3, I'd max out a skill, start learning the next one, but continue to occasionally come back to the first skill to try to beat the challenges.
Long post, but the point is, this update feels more like a band-aid to a problem that needs surgery. The idea isn't totally flawed, but it's seemingly so lacking right now, I don't know why it was prioritized over other player concerns.
They may not want to mess with the performance of the game and that for me is not necessarily an good thing to say or another way is to say they want to stay in the safe zone and not outside the box.
I agree and I already like them.
I would love that.
Anywho, I think this has the potential to be interesting, but right now it feels like a quickie. And not even a satisfying one. Like a vanilla cupcake for your birthday instead of a cake. And I like vanilla, but vanilla cupcakes are the epitome of meh. Especially with white frosting.
My Families Via PlumTree App
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
This would have made me interested: Give the player the option of turning "scenarios" on or off when starting a new game. Develop maybe 6 "scenarios." Then have those scenarios non-selectable. Random. In other words, not player controlled. Have a scenario randomly insert into your game. The player would never know what scenario is going to happen. Would it be perfect? No. But at least that would provide some sort of randomness into what is an extremely predictable and boring game. Unfortunately that would require more than simply re-hashing an existing idea and calling it "new."
― Mark Twain
Thanks for posting all that information. I just want to make a few points.
It seems Maxis is out of ideas for sandbox, life simulator gameplay. This is more the type of gameplay life simulator players avoid, though many players of The Sims, play community challenges but those have never been the reasons so many play the Life Simulator of The Sims. Maxis doesn't remember in my opinion.
This would never be something I play in these games because if I want official challenges I would load up The Sims Medieval. A lot more depth to those scenarios.
I guess if TS4 is to survive another fiver or six years they have to do something. But it all seems like this is more in tune with what people would want on a console game format and or on a mobile device. It's good they state there are many ways to arrive at the goal but still this is more of the RPG mindset of these developers. Again.
It might have been better to wait until they could have implemented playing these with a New household before they rush this out. Because I'm sure at some points saves are going to be messed up when they add that feature, too. Don't serve the cake, meal, food before it's done sort of thing. Once they have to go back and add play with a New household on the UI, I'm almost positive something will break, and should have waited until they had all that under their belt.
Maxis is out of life simulating ideas. It's why they move toward RPG type gameplay, Identity representation, and so many other things that don't actually offer much life simulating but just more goals while no matter who the Sim is supposed to be, they are all the same. Sigh. And they don't remember what in the world a failure state looks like and why so many ask for 'challenge' to this game, not more, harder to obtain goals. Sigh.....Maxis if players get their money for their Sim any other way (what crooked ways are there?) are their Sims going to jail? I doubt it. Life Simulator is lost in TS4.
Separately, I hope EA doesn't read our desire for "more challenge in the base game" as "add challenges." They are NOT the same