inZOI will support day length options, according to director Kjun. Note that the Sims uses a 1 sec = 1 minute time, or 24 real minutes per day.
Hi, everyone.
I was actually very nervous when I first started Kjun's Concerns, which I hoped would become a platform that allows our community to contribute in making inZOI into a better game. I was absolutely blown away when I saw all of your warm (and passionate) comments on the topic. Thank you all for taking part in this communication.
Wow. So, I didn't expect to receive this many comments for our first post, but I think this was a great learning experience for me to understand how everyone has such a different view in what each player wants out of a 'life sim' game.
Some prefer a challenging approach where different obstacles are overcome to give a sense of achievement while others search for blissful serenity, a total relaxation where each and every day is a wonderful gift, appreciating the smaller details in life.
The original question had asked, "Is it '48 minutes' or '96 minutes', the answer to all problems?" The answer was clear: it was the fast-paced '48 minutes' (and sometimes, shorter), and it was also the relaxed pace of 96 minutes (or longer). Both were correct answers to different people! It turned out that selecting just one of these two or even worse, taking a number between the two, which was going to be neither fast nor slow enough, was never going to cut it.
From the very first comment, it was evident as to which idea was going to serve well for everyone. Giving the players the option to simply select their desired game speed in the settings was the most straightforward and user-friendly solution. If you want a fast-paced gameplay, you can select 48 minutes, and if you want a more relaxing experience, go for 96. It really is the ultimate solution! However, as some of you have mentioned, to make this actually come to life is a whole another matter. To adjust your game speed means that you have to cater to so many other elements within the game that, only the most careful balancing act would allow the game to run appropriately. So, to have, not just one set speed, but a variety of game speeds that players can choose from, the game now has to be able to dynamically adjust to each selectable parameter, and the work that's required to prepare all that is (well, to put it lightly), immense.
Nonetheless, it was made clear as I read through every single one of your comments that the value this feature can bring to our players, which would allow them to play inZOI the way they want, was just too great to ignore. Therefore, while we're very aware of the tasks that are in front of us, our team and I have decided to take on this challenge and begin development of a variable game speed setting for inZOI.
Thank you to everyone for participating in our communication. See you in the next post!
New Kjun's Concerns post: this one is about driving.
How many of you actually enjoy driving?
Today, we're going to talk about cars. More specifically, we want to talk about when a Zoi gets inside a vehicle, which of these two approaches is more suitable for a game like inZOI.
Car 'automatically' drives itself to its designated location
Player 'manually' drives the car to reach their destination
Creating a game like inZOI, we wanted everything to be scaled to realistic proportions. We're talking housing, workplaces, and even roads. To make it feel like you're in a real world, we made it so that you can walk to nearby locations, but ideally you'd want to hop in a car to get to places further away.
Today's question initially arose from a more fundamental question of "Will it be enjoyable if you had to drive everywhere, every single time?" My perspective naturally comes from the fact that I don't enjoy driving. Not even in the slightest. This is real life driving I'm talking about. I almost always resort to using public transportation which, some may know, is super convenient in Korea. However, I'm also aware (for reasons unknown) there are those who do enjoy the act of driving.
Initially, our development team developed both of these options but recently found out it would be unrealistic to make both options work at a high level with the limited time that we have.
Unfortunately, we were in a situation where we had to select only one of these two options, and when we looked back to why we decided to make cars in the first place, it was simply to reduce the long travel time for Zois to get from point A to point B. For that reason, we have decided to focus on the 'auto drive' option for operating cars in inZOI.
While I would say that was the main reason, we also had some supporting reasons. First, we didn't make the roads in inZOI to be very wide, which makes it difficult for players to drive really fast or with a high level of freedom like you could in something like GTA. If we were to make the roads wider and maybe add some fun driving mechanics, we would run into another problem with optimization.
To make up for the fact that we removed the ability to manually drive your car, we wanted to create some other features that I think you'll like. This includes things like washing and repairing your car to listening to music while you're driving and rolling down your windows to interact with other Zois outside.
What do you think about the direction we are taking with cars for inZOI? As always, we want to listen to your feedback and think hard about what the correct decision is for this game. While I'm not going to boast about how talented we are as developers, one thing's for certain. Our team is very committed to listening to our community so that we can create a game that everyone can truly enjoy.
As always, thank you to everyone.
In my next post of 'Kjun's Concerns, we will be discussing 'the number of floors in your house', and the trade-off that comes with having as many floors as you could possibly want.
With the enthusiasm everyone has shown in our previous post, I was a bit worried about this topic because I expected most of our players would've wanted a full-blown manual driving experience for inZOI. However, it was to my pleasant surprise again to find out so many of you were actually in favor of us keeping the automated option as the game's sole drive mode. After going through every one of your comments, a majority of you who had commented said that you would want automated driving over the manual option or that you were willing to give up your desire for manual driving and settle with automatic because you understood the restrictions that I initially had explained on this post (which was very heartwarming for me as a developer- thank you for our kind understanding :Kjun_Heart:).
Part of me got really excited after reading your comments for this specific post because it made me feel that while we don't have much developed currently, simply due to the short development period, once we do get Early Access for inZOI into your hands, we can continue to collaborate in a way where we're not just building off of each other but are actually uplifting one another to try and find a solution that works best for everyone! I This type of synergy is usually hard to come by when you're talking about a relationship between video game developers and their players, but I truly believe that this unique synergy is exactly what we need to work towards our unified goal of making inZOI into a more enjoyable game!
As for our decision for cars in inZOI, with many of you in favor of our automated system, I think it would've been okay if we had just abandoned manual altogether. However, I saw that those who had greatly desired manual driving in inZOI continually communicate with our 'pro-automatic' players to collectively come up with a solution that can satisfy both sides. Therefore, while we will be maintaining our automated system as was initially explained in this post, we will also be taking some inspiration from your combined ideas to implement some manual driving capabilities that our team can handle in our current development schedule. I hope that this solution will satisfy our players who want more direct control of their driving experience in inZOI. Please read the description below for our implementation of manual driving in inZOI.
'Drive Mode' can be switched between automatic and manual while driving
Automated drive will be as initially described in this post (select a location > car drives itself to location)
Manual driving controls will consist of the usage of WASD keys, as outlined below
W: Accelerate
S: Brake, reverse
A, D : Steer left and right (with NO restrictions)
I also need to mention that while this manual override allows players to get themselves into car accidents, using automated driving can also lead to occasional crashes. For some, this may come as a surprise to hear that an unfortunate event like a car accident can happen to you, even though it technically may not be your fault.
One of the messages I wanted to portray with this game of 'life' called inZOI is that while we can always strive to live our very best lives, life will inevitably present us with events, both good and bad, that are beyond our control, and it is in these unexpected moments that the choices we make have the greatest impact on our lives, give our lives a sense of meaning, and in the end, make our lives that much more valuable.
Thank you to everyone again for your enthusiastic comments.
See you in our next post!
Loving the Kjun's Concerns posts.
I would be so delighted if TS4's team were to adopt this kind of engagement with the player base concerning upcoming features, taking player feedback, and the discussions they have about what goes into the game. @TheSimsDirect@EA_Cade@EA_Solaire
Kjun is asking discord about building limits. He is suggesting 4 floors in order to maximize performance but adding a disclaimer notification if players want to surpass that limit.
If you had no limits, how many floors would you like your house to have?
Would you sacrifice game performance if that's what it took to have as many floors as you can?
One of my favorite things to do in inZOI is building houses. Most Koreans live in apartment complexes, so having that freedom to build your dream home from scratch on a giant plot of land is always a fun process.
However, when you want multiple floors in your home, you have to consider not only the floors themselves but additional furniture that will likely be placed on those extra floors, which could possibly add up to a couple hundred pieces of furniture if you're building a lot of floors. That takes a huge toll on how the game performs.
With all things considered, we currently have set the upper limit of floors you can have in a home to four.
Because we wanted to cater to a wide range of computer specifications to have as many people as we can enjoying our game, we are working on various graphics options that players can choose from, and we're also working extremely hard on the optimization front.
That's why it worries me that if we do not set an upper limit on the number of floors you can have and then we start getting reports mentioning 'performance drops', people might misunderstand that as us not having done our part to properly optimize the game, which wouldn't be an accurate claim.
Regardless, I think the build mode will be more enjoyable and allow the players to be more creative if we don't set a limit on the number of floors you can have in your house. It's an important feature for sure, but where does it really fall on our priority list?
Let me know you think. Should we go ahead and develop 'unlimited floors' now and just provide a pop-up that says "Enabling this option may not allow for optimal simulation and gameplay" and allow the players to make that decision at their own discretion?
With the limited time we have for our development, I want to know what our community thinks is the right answer for this topic so that I can make this decision of what direction our team should take regarding unlimited floors in inZOI.
As always, excited to hear your thoughts!
In my next post of 'Kjun's Concerns', we will be discussing 'Canvas', our creation sharing platform for inZOI.
Comments
You're right, just I was thinking about the new 15 million players who start in 2023 and don't own the 77 packs yet.
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The basegame cities are beautiful, I hope the characters will be able to visit both of them.
The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
- 👕 [CAS] Male content | 💰 §1 Million Lifestyle | ♂️ Man lifestyle for The Sims | ♻️ Content from The Sims
- 🔨 [Build/Buy Mode] Ideas | 📱 Ideas from The Sims FreePlay | ✈️ Vacation : Gameplay update | 🥦 New meals
The Sims 4 General DiscussionFor those who are already familiar with CLO or Marvelous Designer, there is a contest with a reward up to $5000
https://connect.clo-set.com/contest/55
I'm curious to see if Daz Studio artists or from ArtStation Marketplace will create some stuff.
The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
- 👕 [CAS] Male content | 💰 §1 Million Lifestyle | ♂️ Man lifestyle for The Sims | ♻️ Content from The Sims
- 🔨 [Build/Buy Mode] Ideas | 📱 Ideas from The Sims FreePlay | ✈️ Vacation : Gameplay update | 🥦 New meals
The Sims 4 General DiscussionThe Sims 4 Ideas Corner
- 👕 [CAS] Male content | 💰 §1 Million Lifestyle | ♂️ Man lifestyle for The Sims | ♻️ Content from The Sims
- 🔨 [Build/Buy Mode] Ideas | 📱 Ideas from The Sims FreePlay | ✈️ Vacation : Gameplay update | 🥦 New meals
The Sims 4 General DiscussionI would be so delighted if TS4's team were to adopt this kind of engagement with the player base concerning upcoming features, taking player feedback, and the discussions they have about what goes into the game. @TheSimsDirect @EA_Cade @EA_Solaire
It reminds me when Maxis showed The Sims 4 at gamescom 2014.
The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
- 👕 [CAS] Male content | 💰 §1 Million Lifestyle | ♂️ Man lifestyle for The Sims | ♻️ Content from The Sims
- 🔨 [Build/Buy Mode] Ideas | 📱 Ideas from The Sims FreePlay | ✈️ Vacation : Gameplay update | 🥦 New meals
The Sims 4 General DiscussionPlease let this be good and released this year!.Please let it be an upfront price.