I’ve been thinking about this for a while but never bothered to share the thought (not sure if it belongs over here).
I realized that when playing in the worlds with neighborhoods, they doesn’t feel very alive to me. Sure, there are sims walking and jogging by, and sometimes if there’s one of those nearby play areas with a grill and a few tables, there will be sims spending time there, too. But I’m more focused on the houses in the neighborhoods.
What if they worked like apartments? Meaning, you’d actually see your neighbors come out of their houses to take out the trash or check their mail. You’d see them leave and come home from work/school, and if they’re over at your house you’d see them
actually go home rather than walking right past their home. All of that, just maybe without the noisy neighbors part. I think it would make neighborhoods feel a little more alive.
Now, I know basically nothing about how things are done/things need to be done when it comes to these things so I’m not sure if it would be possible, but it’s just a thought.
What do you guys think?
Comments
But I do agree, your apartment neighbor coming out to check the mail or take out the trash is a nice touch. I guess that’s what they worked on instead of letting us create apartments of our own. There is literally a pro and a con for everything in this game smh.
I was the ultimate stalker sometimes. Like following some of my friends or interesting sims down the road when they jumped in their car to see where they were heading to. Then I would go there too and be like 'hey, what are the chances mate' It made some interesting finds sometimes and was surprised by what they do in their free time. Or following your crush to see if he/she is meeting someone else
But I think they would need to make an entire district loadable and visitable without separate loading screens to make this happen. And I can't see them ever doing that, which is a great tragedy.
The reason you can see your neighbors coming and going in San Myshuno is because the hallway outside their door is loaded as part of your lot.
Yes, this is exactly how I feel about it!
What is really any different? When you find a Sim walking outside in the neighborhood, you'll find that they are registered as having loaded onto that lot that was visited; if you saw your neighbor walking out in the neighborhood while your sim was at home and then switch to the neighbor, it would say they're at your previous sim's home, not their own. This would be the same if you switched between apartment neighbors outside their apartment.
As well, you still have to load into an apartment if you're visiting your apartment neighbor. Just the semblance that they go out of their home lot would be enough to give me the impression there was something going on with your neighbors and their homes. It doesn't necessarily have to be them walking outside their home lot's doors because they can't seem to make that work (yet they can animate objects on other people's lots when we're not at their lot).
To be honest, my initial thought of TS4 was supposed to work like this. But, the only things that we got are the passerby, welcome wagon, cars that passing by, birds flying... I would love to see, the next door neighbours walk out of their house, collecting their newspapers , saying hi (by just raising their hands) without interfering with my Sims life, other Sims visiting their neighbours, interacting with the season changes from their own Lot, etc.. It seems more lively..
p/s I once told my research supervisor that I want to use TS to observe a virtual neighbor interaction. Glad that we didn't do it.. Else, it will be meaningless for my paper... and I'll spend more time playing than actually testing my hypothesis..
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