It could because of making the game as PC as possible and not wanting to offend anybody with children using magic. I would love to have Tim Hunter (who Harry Potter was plagiarized from) as a character with a vampire bestie. Also, kids as mermaids could be looked upon as exploiting kids and be in inappropriate roles as kids.
As for mermaid kids, companies have to be very careful about how they portray children because of certain laws. If I had a client ask me to draw paint create a 3d model of a child mermaid I would tell them no because of how grey some of the laws are and it's better for you legally not to touch that grey area and do something that could be looked at as illegal even though I am not using a live child in my work. I had a friend who worked at a 1-hour photo shoppe years ago. He could NOT print baby's first bath, a kid in a bathing suit or bikini legally. If he found photos like that he had to let his supervisor and the police know. There was only so much he was allowed to print that was dealing with kids. It's better for companies to over sensitive where children are concerned than not sensitive enough and face prison time and fines as a result.
I also am working on a fanfic now which explains why kids can't do magic in the game officially. It has to do with a war that ended when Gemma Charm was a kid. Many children not just from prominent families were kidnapped some sacrificed for power and others forced to be turned against other spellcasters. At the end of the war, it was agreed that children would have their power sealed until they were teens in case something like that ever happened again.
Post edited by drakharis on
Playtesting - not just tabletop games and card games any more. Really that should have been playtested in Beta and not [img]just with accounting and marketing but actual players. https://i.imgur.com/t48COW6.jpg[/img]
It has zero to do with not offending fragile sensibilities, or we would not have pride flags and hijab in-game.
It is that any pack has to stop somewhere. Defining animations and aspirations and gameplay for Teen-Elder was a design decision. What would you rather they left out instead? No Alchemy? No Familiars? No Dueling? No Spellcaster level progression? They made a choice - they made many. It's all about delivering the most variety that can be meaningfully delivered in a cost-effective amount of development time.
For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.
- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase
Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.
You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.
It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.
For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.
- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase
Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.
You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.
It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.
You have a point there. Kids performing magic would be my preference, but reacting to magic done by adults would have helped with including all ages. I really like the examples you gave. Let them see it and react to it.
Now I even have to use a mod to be able to magically clean them with scruberoo. And it makes me wonder why the developers did not allow it in the game.
I also wanted to be able to use potions on them, particularly the potion of plentiful needs. Even if it would always be the positive outcome for children. The drinking animations are already in the game so that can't be an excuse for this one.
Well giving potions to a child might not set well with some parents. As a real life parent - in real life I would be leary of anything a person wanted my child to ingest - even real medicine - never mind a witches potion. I would never do that in or out of a game like the sims anyway. But that is me and i realize that. i know it isn't real but i tend to treat sims kids like real kids - so knowing this I would be at least questioning something like a potion and would steer clear of it in game kids.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I forgot children could make potions at their lab table thing. Strange that it wasn’t used for spell caster children, although I suppose there’s nothing stopping someone from pretending.
For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.
- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase
Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.
You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.
It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.
Not just kids, to be honest. I feel like no one cares that you have magic. I feel like casting magic in front of people should shock them. I miss likes and dislikes. having people be upset by magic would be cool.
I'll admit, it was cute when my Witch toddler would apparate and disapparate his toys... but I couldn't make him do that. And I haven't had a child born in game, yet, to a Spellcaster, so I haven't seen what, if any, indications there are of a magical bloodline in a pre-teen. But I do know Witches in TS3 also got their spellcasting powers as Teens, and I recall with fondness roleplaying a Witch dad giving his Witch son his first wand at Teen age-up.
Are there stories about magical children? Sure. Are there also stories about unlocking magical potential in adolescence? Absolutely, including some biggies like A Wizard of Earthsea, where Ged could meddle clumsily as a child, but not even begin to understand his power until he was Named, until he was, yes, a Teen. Sabrina can live with her aunties and cousin Ambrose, but her witch heritage is closed to her until she has the choice of accepting it, at age 16, as a Teen. TS4 is one of those stories. Teens can learn magic. Children can't yet.
Well, as a long time Archie comic book reader, the comic book Sabrina does do magic as a child, lol. As do other minor characters in that series.
Sorry this is trivial, I know.
Anyway, I'd love for children to have some magical abilities but I am aware that the reason it was left out of the game likely was due to animation budget and time.
Check out my cooking Youtube channel: Living with Leigh
Even in Harry Potter, the kids are capable of magic before they go to school, if you read the books you see Harry has multiple instances of magic before he is 11, they just aren't taught to harness it which is a totally different issue. Hell even in the books toddler Harry has his own broom that Sirius bought him, so using Harry Potter as an example as to why only teens do it doesn't wash with me.
And jobs and the ability to do magic are two different things, jobs are real, magic isn't, and in the context of a game why on earth should a fictional ability not apply to every one?
For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.
- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase
Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.
You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.
It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.
Not just kids, to be honest. I feel like no one cares that you have magic. I feel like casting magic in front of people should shock them. I miss likes and dislikes. having people be upset by magic would be cool.
Like vampires getting disliked when feeding on someone in public, yeah, that would have been nice.
I am really bummed that I cannot even make shooting starts with my wand to make the kids happy or something. It would have been cute and no sims would be touching each others. Just having kids reacting to their parents magic would have gone a long way for me when it comes to making occult families feel occult and not just something that suddenly exists in full force when you turn teen.
Ok if the kiddos can do spells, can they see them at least. Look at the spells and just... do something.
Im just so sick of being disappointed in this game when I try so hard to love it. Maybe if I had never played previous versions, The Sims 4 would be an great game. I know & understand game developers have budgets and time constraints but, kids should be able to do a bit of what the pack is revolving around or it's only half done imo.
Please Bring BackToddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3
Tabitha in the original Bewitched was able to do cute & funny spells.
Harry & his friends in the 1st year of Harry Potter were only 11 & they had powers.
Kids with mermaid tails would have been absolutely adorable. Think of all the cute play interactions that could accompany such a thing. And I also feel they should have been included as spellcasters. Way I see it, a kids magic pack with some appropriate, colorful and playful content would make a very nice addition to the main RoM pack.
Origin ID: Nindigo79
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
@Nindigo While I mostly agree with you, that thought alone is why they made a "My first Pets Stuff" pack. I hope they don't try to pull that with RoM, yet I kinda wish they would.
Please Bring BackToddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3
From some EA employee: "The userbase doesnt play kids so we dont create content for kids"
Im already half expecting our new education(?) pack will have no gameplay for kids.
I wonder if they are even aware of the complaints in several discussions on this forum concerning child and family gameplay, or the lack thereof. Is there a poll or survey at the base of the claim that simmers don't care for younger life stages?
And if the next pack is indeed university, I expect no child gameplay whatsoever. (I really hope I am wrong and will be pleasantly surprised) Leaving out even child/toddler cas items in ROM was a very clear message that we should keep our expectations for younger sims very low.
From some EA employee: "The userbase doesnt play kids so we dont create content for kids"
Im already half expecting our new education(?) pack will have no gameplay for kids.
I wonder if they are even aware of the complaints in several discussions on this forum concerning child and family gameplay, or the lack thereof. Is there a poll or survey at the base of the claim that simmers don't care for younger life stages?
And if the next pack is indeed university, I expect no child gameplay whatsoever. (I really hope I am wrong and will be pleasantly surprised) Leaving out even child/toddler cas items in ROM was a very clear message that we should keep our expectations for younger sims very low.
I think them moving the bugs and technical discussions over to EA Answers HQ says pretty loudly that they don't read anything over here.
From some EA employee: "The userbase doesnt play kids so we dont create content for kids"
Im already half expecting our new education(?) pack will have no gameplay for kids.
I wonder if they are even aware of the complaints in several discussions on this forum concerning child and family gameplay, or the lack thereof. Is there a poll or survey at the base of the claim that simmers don't care for younger life stages?
And if the next pack is indeed university, I expect no child gameplay whatsoever. (I really hope I am wrong and will be pleasantly surprised) Leaving out even child/toddler cas items in ROM was a very clear message that we should keep our expectations for younger sims very low.
I think them moving the bugs and technical discussions over to EA Answers HQ says pretty loudly that they don't read anything over here.
From some EA employee: "The userbase doesnt play kids so we dont create content for kids"
Im already half expecting our new education(?) pack will have no gameplay for kids.
I wonder if they are even aware of the complaints in several discussions on this forum concerning child and family gameplay, or the lack thereof. Is there a poll or survey at the base of the claim that simmers don't care for younger life stages?
And if the next pack is indeed university, I expect no child gameplay whatsoever. (I really hope I am wrong and will be pleasantly surprised) Leaving out even child/toddler cas items in ROM was a very clear message that we should keep our expectations for younger sims very low.
If you look at the speculation forum university threads, I'm not so sure the developers are wrong. Most of the people excited about university (if it's coming) want YA party life, not education and certainly not anything for kids. I only hope they'll throw us a few bones - homeschooling, online university and the option to attend university while living at home, so that we don't have to break up our families when a YA starts university. I don't think any of this would require much in terms of programming, but they would mean a lot in terms of game-play for family players.
Well, I certainly hope the developers don't assume that people don't enjoy playing with families and children just because they're looking forward to a pack that is clearly geared towards young adult gameplay, because that would be some very flawed logic. Unless you're raising a bunch of little Sheldon Coopers, university is usually for (young) adults and their education, not for getting married and having children, so I don't expect there to be anything family-oriented in that pack. And that's okay in my opinion, not every pack has to include family stuff when it just doesn't suit the main theme, as long as the family stuff is not also left out of everything else where it would actually make sense, like a magic pack. (Oh, wait...)
That being said, however, I also hope sims don't have to move to campus to study, and that they can still do it later in life and not just right out of high school. I still lived with my parents when I was at university because it wasn't far away, and I had a couple of older and even elderly people in my courses that had started around the same time, so I hope I'll be able to reproduce this experience in the game.
My personal thought is that while kid spells should have been included but if this is the only way to get magic for kids I don't mind buying an additional pack. (Unpopular opinion I actually liked My First Pet Stuff and bought it before Cats and Dogs)
Comments
As for mermaid kids, companies have to be very careful about how they portray children because of certain laws. If I had a client ask me to draw paint create a 3d model of a child mermaid I would tell them no because of how grey some of the laws are and it's better for you legally not to touch that grey area and do something that could be looked at as illegal even though I am not using a live child in my work. I had a friend who worked at a 1-hour photo shoppe years ago. He could NOT print baby's first bath, a kid in a bathing suit or bikini legally. If he found photos like that he had to let his supervisor and the police know. There was only so much he was allowed to print that was dealing with kids. It's better for companies to over sensitive where children are concerned than not sensitive enough and face prison time and fines as a result.
I also am working on a fanfic now which explains why kids can't do magic in the game officially. It has to do with a war that ended when Gemma Charm was a kid. Many children not just from prominent families were kidnapped some sacrificed for power and others forced to be turned against other spellcasters. At the end of the war, it was agreed that children would have their power sealed until they were teens in case something like that ever happened again.
It is that any pack has to stop somewhere. Defining animations and aspirations and gameplay for Teen-Elder was a design decision. What would you rather they left out instead? No Alchemy? No Familiars? No Dueling? No Spellcaster level progression? They made a choice - they made many. It's all about delivering the most variety that can be meaningfully delivered in a cost-effective amount of development time.
Kid wizards did not make the cut. Sorry.
For my part the child does not have to be the one practicing magic. It could have been good anyways.
- Making a small shower of stars for your toddler to ohh and ahh over
- Making the vegetables dance in the air when you are making soup. Kids laugh at silly
- Making bubbles in the air for all kids to chase
Kids are just completely cut off from magic. They cannot see it. React to it. It does not exist in their life.
You cannot even make your kid smile by making magic for your sim-child because there is no magic in their lives.
It just feels so sad when they are excluded from things in pack after pack.
You have a point there. Kids performing magic would be my preference, but reacting to magic done by adults would have helped with including all ages. I really like the examples you gave. Let them see it and react to it.
Now I even have to use a mod to be able to magically clean them with scruberoo. And it makes me wonder why the developers did not allow it in the game.
I also wanted to be able to use potions on them, particularly the potion of plentiful needs. Even if it would always be the positive outcome for children. The drinking animations are already in the game so that can't be an excuse for this one.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Our child labor laws in the USA prevent that from happening. It is illegal here.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Not just kids, to be honest. I feel like no one cares that you have magic. I feel like casting magic in front of people should shock them. I miss likes and dislikes. having people be upset by magic would be cool.
In the U.S. (where The Sims 4 is based) this is illegal.
@Sindocat
Well, as a long time Archie comic book reader, the comic book Sabrina does do magic as a child, lol. As do other minor characters in that series.
Sorry this is trivial, I know.
Anyway, I'd love for children to have some magical abilities but I am aware that the reason it was left out of the game likely was due to animation budget and time.
And jobs and the ability to do magic are two different things, jobs are real, magic isn't, and in the context of a game why on earth should a fictional ability not apply to every one?
Like vampires getting disliked when feeding on someone in public, yeah, that would have been nice.
I am really bummed that I cannot even make shooting starts with my wand to make the kids happy or something. It would have been cute and no sims would be touching each others. Just having kids reacting to their parents magic would have gone a long way for me when it comes to making occult families feel occult and not just something that suddenly exists in full force when you turn teen.
Ok if the kiddos can do spells, can they see them at least. Look at the spells and just... do something.
Please Bring Back Toddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3
Harry & his friends in the 1st year of Harry Potter were only 11 & they had powers.
Im already half expecting our new education(?) pack will have no gameplay for kids.
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
Please Bring Back Toddlers, Realistic Teenagers and Create a World.
Make the Sims (4) Great Again<3
I wonder if they are even aware of the complaints in several discussions on this forum concerning child and family gameplay, or the lack thereof. Is there a poll or survey at the base of the claim that simmers don't care for younger life stages?
And if the next pack is indeed university, I expect no child gameplay whatsoever. (I really hope I am wrong and will be pleasantly surprised) Leaving out even child/toddler cas items in ROM was a very clear message that we should keep our expectations for younger sims very low.
I think them moving the bugs and technical discussions over to EA Answers HQ says pretty loudly that they don't read anything over here.
That is my impression as well.
If you look at the speculation forum university threads, I'm not so sure the developers are wrong. Most of the people excited about university (if it's coming) want YA party life, not education and certainly not anything for kids. I only hope they'll throw us a few bones - homeschooling, online university and the option to attend university while living at home, so that we don't have to break up our families when a YA starts university. I don't think any of this would require much in terms of programming, but they would mean a lot in terms of game-play for family players.
That being said, however, I also hope sims don't have to move to campus to study, and that they can still do it later in life and not just right out of high school. I still lived with my parents when I was at university because it wasn't far away, and I had a couple of older and even elderly people in my courses that had started around the same time, so I hope I'll be able to reproduce this experience in the game.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/967189/would-you-buy-a-pack-that-gave-kids-occult-powers/p1
My personal thought is that while kid spells should have been included but if this is the only way to get magic for kids I don't mind buying an additional pack. (Unpopular opinion I actually liked My First Pet Stuff and bought it before Cats and Dogs)