I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
Clearly, for whatever reason, our feedback on this topic has amounted to absolutely nothing. Either those that despise mobile gaming are in a minority here, or profit is being prioritized over consumer satisfaction.
It is so definitely this, EA doesn't care about consumers, their satisfaction or anything else... Otherwise they wouldn't have one of the worst customer support services in the known universe, all EA ever cares about is profit.
They're so greedy they put the Ferengi to shame.
I would definitely concede that I agree with you. EA has a horrendous track record. This isn't me stating my opinion or personal animosity, this is me acknowledging the dominant opinion around the web. Another user here has a signature highlighting that if you google EA, then google will suggest all kinds of negative searches. Just go type in "EA is" and look at what you get. I get "EA is trash," "EA is greedy," "EA is bad."
Whether EA feels they're actually greedy or trash or whatever is irrelevant. What does matter is consumer perception. You could be the most generous company in the world, but that doesn't matter if your customers have their backs to the wall and their hands clutch their money out of fear you'll stab them in the back or make a grab for their cash. You're not gonna make sales that way when people view you like that. Regardless of actual circumstances, EA/Maxis has a lot of work to do improving their image.
They don't much care about their image, as long as people buy their games.
EA's view of a customer is based on the old phrase: "There's a sucker born every minute."
And that's precisely where we are. This little fiasco regarding the announcement of a mobile game (that houses developers who once worked on Sims 3's expansions under the second EP team) and confirmation that Sims 4 was once online and they never bothered to tell us...? This is honestly just another drop in the bucket in a rather storied history of ways EA has made fans distrust their intentions. This, for me, is not a shocking revelation, but moreso it's finally a chance to definitively highlight why EA is called greedy and why consumer trust in them is so low.
This mobile game is releasing against the wishes of many users, and we finally know EA/Maxis has been hiding the full story of Sims 4's development from us. Now they encourage us that all is well, Sims 4 is doing great and this new project will not interfere with the old. Okay. I'm not convinced lolololol. Can't imagine why!
What makes me trust them a lot less is just how many of our ideas, from ideas and feedback are being incorporated into the mobile games and NOT into TS4... It really does look like they're veering away from the PC and directing the sims into a mobile form.
Whether EA/Maxis feels I'm right or wrong or that my concerns are unjustified...? That's entirely irrelevant, and would only be relevant if I were an outlier; some crazy paranoid consumer whose thoughts do not resemble anyone else's. That's not the case, and clearly plenty of us are concerned and considering looking for the Exit. It's in their interest and it's on them to try and reassure us that all will be well.
They don't care enough to want to reassure you, as far as they're concerned if they lose every complainer as a customer, there's always someone else who will buy it, and if not... No worries, the game will simply be closed down and EA will say that the Sims niche is no longer popular.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I don't want to be rude here. Why the sims 4 supposed to be a new gaming experience .It is still the fourth game of the franchise. Meaning people compare it to past games, and how things work. Because of its a sequel, and its fourth iteration.
I wholeheartedly second this. I've heard this exact argument regarding other games as well (Fallout 4, if I'm remembering correct...?), and I view such statements as a blatant deflection. It's perfectly rational for people to consider Sims 4 to be like the other 3, yet we've often gotten response akin to "we have a different vision now." Well, clearly that vision is quite controversial, because at the very least we know Sims 4 isn't doing as well as Sims 3 did. Yeah yeah, we don't know definitively, but I imagine they'd want to tell the press if 4 outpaced 3.
People have complaints and concerns about Sims 4. To simply respond to those with "this is a different game" does nothing to actually tackle and address any of those complaints. I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe we've still been given zero reasoning or rationale as to why we lack:
Cops and Burglars
Firefighters
Doorbells
Carpools
Cars
Etc etc. If I asked "why are there no firefighters" and heard "this is a different game" as an answer, then it's quite understandable why I'd feel unsatisfied with that answer.
Yes, that I was thinking as well. Sure I'm okay if the game does new things. It is a new game after all, and the previous games weren't exactly the same. Still, the game is a sequel. I will also expect old things back. Also, old things touch upon and made better
you don't think it's at all unreasonable to be asking for every feature from previous games, improvements on those features, and new features added on top of it all?
especially when the budget for the game is lower than before?
It's not about wanting every feature. The problem is twofold.
1) Saying "this game is different" is a dismissal of complaints. For example if you complained "this game should be open world," I could reply back and state that with open world come a number of advantages and disadvantages that they felt overall aren't worth it, arguing that they'd rather prioritize rotational play or multiple families per save file even if it comes at the cost of things like story progression. That may not be an answer you like, but it is an answer as to the method that let's you know and understand their reasoning. If you ask that same question and I answer "this game is different," I haven't exactly expounded upon any of my thoughts or reasoning.
2) The method and the purpose in omitting something. If I tell you "this game is different," it's a bit difficult to explain how being "different" means firefighters need to be skipped. Sometimes being different is a good explanation for changes, but other times it isn't, as being different and housing a traditional feature are not mutually exclusive. In this case, stating "it's different" doesn't really explain anything about why Firefighters are gone, nor justify it.
actually you bring a up a good point they considered adding celebrites to the sims 4 city life but decided not too because they heard from the fanbase not alot of people liked in the sims 3 and they did not understand why. so they had no way to improve upon it since they did not know what was wrong that is a good reason for not adding a feature and understandable one.
Is this serious? Like can you quote them on that?
I would consider it absolutely baffling if they didn't know why the Sims 3 celebrity system was unpopular. The answer is simple: No matter who you were, you would eventually become a celebrity. Befriending any celebrity awarded star status, getting certain jobs did it, I think having certain skills did it...The big thing was that if you befriended ONE celebrity then you counted as one, and you would only accrue celebrity status, never lose it. To make it worse, a celebrity would also inevitably get rich, because people would mail you free cars and hot tubs and the like. As such, it basically broke the balance of the game (which was already poor) and made it super easy to become rich and famous, to the point that it would actually be MORE challenging to avoid getting rich and famous.
While this statement completely baffled me...
“It's a little bit of a boogeyman thing for us. We asked our players about this,” Rodiek explained. “Players had some frustration with some of the celebrity elements in The Sims 3 and without really understanding why they didn't like it, we didn't want to step into a land mine of making a mistake that wouldn't make players happy.”
(we didn't really understand why players didn't like it, come oooooooooooooooon!!!!)
... I think this part was totally acceptable in more than one way:
“I think celebrity mostly makes sense to the city because it's something we've done in the past for Sims, but I don't necessarily think is has a whole lot to do with the city per se . Unless you live in Los Angeles or certain parts of New York, you probably don't see celebrities too often.”
Rodiek points out that he’s lived in San Francisco for 11 years and has never seen a famous person. And I can vouch for that. Casual celebrity run-ins aren’t a thing, especially not in the way people from small towns think of them.
“It was one of those things where we really wanted to focus on what it means to live in a city day to day,” Rodiek said.
I don't want to be rude here. Why the sims 4 supposed to be a new gaming experience .It is still the fourth game of the franchise. Meaning people compare it to past games, and how things work. Because of its a sequel, and its fourth iteration.
I wholeheartedly second this. I've heard this exact argument regarding other games as well (Fallout 4, if I'm remembering correct...?), and I view such statements as a blatant deflection. It's perfectly rational for people to consider Sims 4 to be like the other 3, yet we've often gotten response akin to "we have a different vision now." Well, clearly that vision is quite controversial, because at the very least we know Sims 4 isn't doing as well as Sims 3 did. Yeah yeah, we don't know definitively, but I imagine they'd want to tell the press if 4 outpaced 3.
People have complaints and concerns about Sims 4. To simply respond to those with "this is a different game" does nothing to actually tackle and address any of those complaints. I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe we've still been given zero reasoning or rationale as to why we lack:
Cops and Burglars
Firefighters
Doorbells
Carpools
Cars
Etc etc. If I asked "why are there no firefighters" and heard "this is a different game" as an answer, then it's quite understandable why I'd feel unsatisfied with that answer.
Yes, that I was thinking as well. Sure I'm okay if the game does new things. It is a new game after all, and the previous games weren't exactly the same. Still, the game is a sequel. I will also expect old things back. Also, old things touch upon and made better
you don't think it's at all unreasonable to be asking for every feature from previous games, improvements on those features, and new features added on top of it all?
especially when the budget for the game is lower than before?
It's not about wanting every feature. The problem is twofold.
1) Saying "this game is different" is a dismissal of complaints. For example if you complained "this game should be open world," I could reply back and state that with open world come a number of advantages and disadvantages that they felt overall aren't worth it, arguing that they'd rather prioritize rotational play or multiple families per save file even if it comes at the cost of things like story progression. That may not be an answer you like, but it is an answer as to the method that let's you know and understand their reasoning. If you ask that same question and I answer "this game is different," I haven't exactly expounded upon any of my thoughts or reasoning.
2) The method and the purpose in omitting something. If I tell you "this game is different," it's a bit difficult to explain how being "different" means firefighters need to be skipped. Sometimes being different is a good explanation for changes, but other times it isn't, as being different and housing a traditional feature are not mutually exclusive. In this case, stating "it's different" doesn't really explain anything about why Firefighters are gone, nor justify it.
actually you bring a up a good point they considered adding celebrites to the sims 4 city life but decided not too because they heard from the fanbase not alot of people liked in the sims 3 and they did not understand why. so they had no way to improve upon it since they did not know what was wrong that is a good reason for not adding a feature and understandable one.
Is this serious? Like can you quote them on that?
I would consider it absolutely baffling if they didn't know why the Sims 3 celebrity system was unpopular. The answer is simple: No matter who you were, you would eventually become a celebrity. Befriending any celebrity awarded star status, getting certain jobs did it, I think having certain skills did it...The big thing was that if you befriended ONE celebrity then you counted as one, and you would only accrue celebrity status, never lose it. To make it worse, a celebrity would also inevitably get rich, because people would mail you free cars and hot tubs and the like. As such, it basically broke the balance of the game (which was already poor) and made it super easy to become rich and famous, to the point that it would actually be MORE challenging to avoid getting rich and famous.
While this statement completely baffled me...
“It's a little bit of a boogeyman thing for us. We asked our players about this,” Rodiek explained. “Players had some frustration with some of the celebrity elements in The Sims 3 and without really understanding why they didn't like it, we didn't want to step into a land mine of making a mistake that wouldn't make players happy.”
(we didn't really understand why players didn't like it, come oooooooooooooooon!!!!)
... I think this part was totally acceptable in more than one way:
“I think celebrity mostly makes sense to the city because it's something we've done in the past for Sims, but I don't necessarily think is has a whole lot to do with the city per se . Unless you live in Los Angeles or certain parts of New York, you probably don't see celebrities too often.”
Rodiek points out that he’s lived in San Francisco for 11 years and has never seen a famous person. And I can vouch for that. Casual celebrity run-ins aren’t a thing, especially not in the way people from small towns think of them.
“It was one of those things where we really wanted to focus on what it means to live in a city day to day,” Rodiek said.
Yeah I'm mixed on it too so I didn't comment. It's not as bad as it sounded, but it's still a little odd to hear any hint that they had trouble understanding the problem with Sims 3's system. In Sims 1 we had to work our butts off to become a celebrity. In Sims 3, you were going to become a celebrity if you were co-workers with a celebrity. It was pretty ridiculous, and it took away a sense of control from the player and just assumed all of us want to be rich and famous 5 star celebrities.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
I don't want to be rude here. Why the sims 4 supposed to be a new gaming experience .It is still the fourth game of the franchise. Meaning people compare it to past games, and how things work. Because of its a sequel, and its fourth iteration.
I wholeheartedly second this. I've heard this exact argument regarding other games as well (Fallout 4, if I'm remembering correct...?), and I view such statements as a blatant deflection. It's perfectly rational for people to consider Sims 4 to be like the other 3, yet we've often gotten response akin to "we have a different vision now." Well, clearly that vision is quite controversial, because at the very least we know Sims 4 isn't doing as well as Sims 3 did. Yeah yeah, we don't know definitively, but I imagine they'd want to tell the press if 4 outpaced 3.
People have complaints and concerns about Sims 4. To simply respond to those with "this is a different game" does nothing to actually tackle and address any of those complaints. I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe we've still been given zero reasoning or rationale as to why we lack:
Cops and Burglars
Firefighters
Doorbells
Carpools
Cars
Etc etc. If I asked "why are there no firefighters" and heard "this is a different game" as an answer, then it's quite understandable why I'd feel unsatisfied with that answer.
Yes, that I was thinking as well. Sure I'm okay if the game does new things. It is a new game after all, and the previous games weren't exactly the same. Still, the game is a sequel. I will also expect old things back. Also, old things touch upon and made better
you don't think it's at all unreasonable to be asking for every feature from previous games, improvements on those features, and new features added on top of it all?
especially when the budget for the game is lower than before?
It's not about wanting every feature. The problem is twofold.
1) Saying "this game is different" is a dismissal of complaints. For example if you complained "this game should be open world," I could reply back and state that with open world come a number of advantages and disadvantages that they felt overall aren't worth it, arguing that they'd rather prioritize rotational play or multiple families per save file even if it comes at the cost of things like story progression. That may not be an answer you like, but it is an answer as to the method that let's you know and understand their reasoning. If you ask that same question and I answer "this game is different," I haven't exactly expounded upon any of my thoughts or reasoning.
2) The method and the purpose in omitting something. If I tell you "this game is different," it's a bit difficult to explain how being "different" means firefighters need to be skipped. Sometimes being different is a good explanation for changes, but other times it isn't, as being different and housing a traditional feature are not mutually exclusive. In this case, stating "it's different" doesn't really explain anything about why Firefighters are gone, nor justify it.
actually you bring a up a good point they considered adding celebrites to the sims 4 city life but decided not too because they heard from the fanbase not alot of people liked in the sims 3 and they did not understand why. so they had no way to improve upon it since they did not know what was wrong that is a good reason for not adding a feature and understandable one.
Is this serious? Like can you quote them on that?
I would consider it absolutely baffling if they didn't know why the Sims 3 celebrity system was unpopular. The answer is simple: No matter who you were, you would eventually become a celebrity. Befriending any celebrity awarded star status, getting certain jobs did it, I think having certain skills did it...The big thing was that if you befriended ONE celebrity then you counted as one, and you would only accrue celebrity status, never lose it. To make it worse, a celebrity would also inevitably get rich, because people would mail you free cars and hot tubs and the like. As such, it basically broke the balance of the game (which was already poor) and made it super easy to become rich and famous, to the point that it would actually be MORE challenging to avoid getting rich and famous.
While this statement completely baffled me...
“It's a little bit of a boogeyman thing for us. We asked our players about this,” Rodiek explained. “Players had some frustration with some of the celebrity elements in The Sims 3 and without really understanding why they didn't like it, we didn't want to step into a land mine of making a mistake that wouldn't make players happy.”
(we didn't really understand why players didn't like it, come oooooooooooooooon!!!!)
... I think this part was totally acceptable in more than one way:
“I think celebrity mostly makes sense to the city because it's something we've done in the past for Sims, but I don't necessarily think is has a whole lot to do with the city per se . Unless you live in Los Angeles or certain parts of New York, you probably don't see celebrities too often.”
Rodiek points out that he’s lived in San Francisco for 11 years and has never seen a famous person. And I can vouch for that. Casual celebrity run-ins aren’t a thing, especially not in the way people from small towns think of them.
“It was one of those things where we really wanted to focus on what it means to live in a city day to day,” Rodiek said.
Yeah I'm mixed on it too so I didn't comment. It's not as bad as it sounded, but it's still a little odd to hear any hint that they had trouble understanding the problem with Sims 3's system. In Sims 1 we had to work our butts off to become a celebrity. In Sims 3, you were going to become a celebrity if you were co-workers with a celebrity. It was pretty ridiculous, and it took away a sense of control from the player and just assumed all of us want to be rich and famous 5 star celebrities.
Yes, that celebrity system is so silly that I don't even understand why it should even be explained in the first place. There simply is nothing about it to not understand.
The Sims 4 is like that cake you messed up and burnt, but you threw some decoration on it to make it look beautiful and hide the mess! SHAME ON YOU, EA!
"Here's my invitation baby. Hope it set us free, to know each other better. Put your love all over me" -"Invitation" Britney Spears.
I don't want to be rude here. Why the sims 4 supposed to be a new gaming experience .It is still the fourth game of the franchise. Meaning people compare it to past games, and how things work. Because of its a sequel, and its fourth iteration.
I wholeheartedly second this. I've heard this exact argument regarding other games as well (Fallout 4, if I'm remembering correct...?), and I view such statements as a blatant deflection. It's perfectly rational for people to consider Sims 4 to be like the other 3, yet we've often gotten response akin to "we have a different vision now." Well, clearly that vision is quite controversial, because at the very least we know Sims 4 isn't doing as well as Sims 3 did. Yeah yeah, we don't know definitively, but I imagine they'd want to tell the press if 4 outpaced 3.
People have complaints and concerns about Sims 4. To simply respond to those with "this is a different game" does nothing to actually tackle and address any of those complaints. I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe we've still been given zero reasoning or rationale as to why we lack:
Cops and Burglars
Firefighters
Doorbells
Carpools
Cars
Etc etc. If I asked "why are there no firefighters" and heard "this is a different game" as an answer, then it's quite understandable why I'd feel unsatisfied with that answer.
Yes, that I was thinking as well. Sure I'm okay if the game does new things. It is a new game after all, and the previous games weren't exactly the same. Still, the game is a sequel. I will also expect old things back. Also, old things touch upon and made better
you don't think it's at all unreasonable to be asking for every feature from previous games, improvements on those features, and new features added on top of it all?
especially when the budget for the game is lower than before?
It's not about wanting every feature. The problem is twofold.
1) Saying "this game is different" is a dismissal of complaints. For example if you complained "this game should be open world," I could reply back and state that with open world come a number of advantages and disadvantages that they felt overall aren't worth it, arguing that they'd rather prioritize rotational play or multiple families per save file even if it comes at the cost of things like story progression. That may not be an answer you like, but it is an answer as to the method that let's you know and understand their reasoning. If you ask that same question and I answer "this game is different," I haven't exactly expounded upon any of my thoughts or reasoning.
2) The method and the purpose in omitting something. If I tell you "this game is different," it's a bit difficult to explain how being "different" means firefighters need to be skipped. Sometimes being different is a good explanation for changes, but other times it isn't, as being different and housing a traditional feature are not mutually exclusive. In this case, stating "it's different" doesn't really explain anything about why Firefighters are gone, nor justify it.
actually you bring a up a good point they considered adding celebrites to the sims 4 city life but decided not too because they heard from the fanbase not alot of people liked in the sims 3 and they did not understand why. so they had no way to improve upon it since they did not know what was wrong that is a good reason for not adding a feature and understandable one.
Is this serious? Like can you quote them on that?
I would consider it absolutely baffling if they didn't know why the Sims 3 celebrity system was unpopular. The answer is simple: No matter who you were, you would eventually become a celebrity. Befriending any celebrity awarded star status, getting certain jobs did it, I think having certain skills did it...The big thing was that if you befriended ONE celebrity then you counted as one, and you would only accrue celebrity status, never lose it. To make it worse, a celebrity would also inevitably get rich, because people would mail you free cars and hot tubs and the like. As such, it basically broke the balance of the game (which was already poor) and made it super easy to become rich and famous, to the point that it would actually be MORE challenging to avoid getting rich and famous.
While this statement completely baffled me...
“It's a little bit of a boogeyman thing for us. We asked our players about this,” Rodiek explained. “Players had some frustration with some of the celebrity elements in The Sims 3 and without really understanding why they didn't like it, we didn't want to step into a land mine of making a mistake that wouldn't make players happy.”
(we didn't really understand why players didn't like it, come oooooooooooooooon!!!!)
... I think this part was totally acceptable in more than one way:
“I think celebrity mostly makes sense to the city because it's something we've done in the past for Sims, but I don't necessarily think is has a whole lot to do with the city per se . Unless you live in Los Angeles or certain parts of New York, you probably don't see celebrities too often.”
Rodiek points out that he’s lived in San Francisco for 11 years and has never seen a famous person. And I can vouch for that. Casual celebrity run-ins aren’t a thing, especially not in the way people from small towns think of them.
“It was one of those things where we really wanted to focus on what it means to live in a city day to day,” Rodiek said.
Yeah I'm mixed on it too so I didn't comment. It's not as bad as it sounded, but it's still a little odd to hear any hint that they had trouble understanding the problem with Sims 3's system. In Sims 1 we had to work our butts off to become a celebrity. In Sims 3, you were going to become a celebrity if you were co-workers with a celebrity. It was pretty ridiculous, and it took away a sense of control from the player and just assumed all of us want to be rich and famous 5 star celebrities.
Their lack of understanding is almost as bad as the infamous 'telemetry' argument.
Yeah I'm mixed on it too so I didn't comment. It's not as bad as it sounded, but it's still a little odd to hear any hint that they had trouble understanding the problem with Sims 3's system. In Sims 1 we had to work our butts off to become a celebrity. In Sims 3, you were going to become a celebrity if you were co-workers with a celebrity. It was pretty ridiculous, and it took away a sense of control from the player and just assumed all of us want to be rich and famous 5 star celebrities.
I always disabled celebrities in TS3 because of how broken it was. Celebrity status was like an incurable virus or disease. The second one sim encountered a celebrity it spread like wildfire and in a short span of time all of the sims in your household were five star celebrities.
I like the idea of having famous sims and even playing with one. But I wish it would have been incredibly hard to even become a one star celebrity and increase in difficulty to level up in status. Like, make your sims really have to work for it. Make it challenging. I think that would make the game more interesting.
This has had zero impact on our development. You don't know how long we've been working on this project (and no I will not discuss it as it is not my place) and you didn't even seem to notice the change until a SimGuru mentioned it.
I'm sorry what? I don't want to sound disrespectful, but where have you been the past year or so? It is often discussed how slow the EP are coming, it was said by Graham (if I remember correctly), that the EP production would slow down to one a year beside every few months.
We did notice the change, the right thing to say would be to say we didn't knew why, but saying that we didn't even notice is insulting, and it show that you think we are plum.
YASSS MAMA! COME THROUGH SNATCH HER WIG!
"Here's my invitation baby. Hope it set us free, to know each other better. Put your love all over me" -"Invitation" Britney Spears.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
They're called weasel words, though now we're getting into arguing semantics, which I personally just don't care much for. If I felt there was some justification to believe the people she's named are a very insignificant minority that's being played up in terms of importance, then sure, but I don't feel that way. I think at the very least, those people are numerous enough to count as "non-insignificant," so whether they're the minority or majority isn't my focus so much as my focus is that clearly steps could be taken to improve customer satisfaction.
I'd much rather try to understand what she's trying to say and continue with the discussion, instead of scrutinizing poor word choice.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
They're called weasel words, though now we're getting into arguing semantics, which I personally just don't care much for. If I felt there was some justification to believe the people she's named are a very insignificant minority that's being played up in terms of importance, then sure, but I don't feel that way. I think at the very least, those people are numerous enough to count as "non-insignificant," so whether they're the minority or majority isn't my focus so much as my focus is that clearly steps could be taken to improve customer satisfaction.
I'd much rather try to understand what she's trying to say and continue with the discussion, instead of scrutinizing poor word choice.
So because you have a feeling that the number she named is significant, I should give it a pass? Coming from someone who scrutinizes virtually everything? Come on. And I don't mean that as a criticism saying you scrutinize virtually everything. I'm just saying, come on man. You're preaching to me about scrutinizing word choice when scrutinizing is 90% of what you do on these forums. And then you're not going to scrutinize this one point in particular because you have a "feeling" that the number is non-insignificant? I am so not giving that one a pass.
On top of that, you're implying I should be trying to understand instead of scrutinizing the point, when I did try to understand what she's trying to say and just told you I talked to her beyond that and, at some point, felt connected to her experiences and frustrations.
This whole line of discussion is making an issue out of something that has already passed and ended without incident. If mirta wants to take issue with something I said, she is welcome to. As far as I'm concerned, the two of us had some reasonable back and forth, and that was that.
I'm done entertaining this line of discussion with you.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
They're called weasel words, though now we're getting into arguing semantics, which I personally just don't care much for. If I felt there was some justification to believe the people she's named are a very insignificant minority that's being played up in terms of importance, then sure, but I don't feel that way. I think at the very least, those people are numerous enough to count as "non-insignificant," so whether they're the minority or majority isn't my focus so much as my focus is that clearly steps could be taken to improve customer satisfaction.
I'd much rather try to understand what she's trying to say and continue with the discussion, instead of scrutinizing poor word choice.
So because you have a feeling that the number she named is significant, I should give it a pass? Coming from someone who scrutinizes virtually everything? Come on. And I don't mean that as a criticism saying you scrutinize virtually everything. I'm just saying, come on man. You're preaching to me about scrutinizing word choice when scrutinizing is 90% of what you do on these forums. And then you're not going to scrutinize this one point in particular because you have a "feeling" that the number is non-insignificant? I am so not giving that one a pass.
On top of that, you're implying I should be trying to understand instead of scrutinizing the point, when I did try to understand what she's trying to say and just told you I talked to her beyond that and, at some point, felt connected to her experiences and frustrations.
This whole line of discussion is making an issue out of something that has already passed and ended without incident. If mirta wants to take issue with something I said, she is welcome to. As far as I'm concerned, the two of us had some reasonable back and forth, and that was that.
I'm done entertaining this line of discussion with you.
You mean to tell me that, as a small sample, LGR's "Two years of Meh" video criticizing the Sims 4 has half a million views alongside a like-dislike ratio of 98% of those liking/disliking saying they enjoy the video (with 19,000 voting), and those that are dissatisfied with Sims 4's performance are an insignificant minority? You mean to tell me that you would browse this very thread or forums and say that the critics are an insignificant minority? You mean to tell me that the Sims 4's lackluster launch and ongoing lackluster rating are not evidence of consumer dissatisfaction with this product? (and by all means give those reviews a look, since some are clear garbage and the recommended 10/10 review is biting sarcasm...)
Take a sample size from any community and I think you'll find that at the very least, describing the critics and the feelings of dissatisfaction as "non-insignificant" is a very fair description.
There comes a time when you need to ask yourself if you aren't bending over backwards to try and make excuses to downplay your opposition. You are not tackling any of mirta's arguments regarding the game, the development rate, or the bugs. Instead you insist on semantics and insist upon what's more or less an impossible argument that I took painstaking effort to try and explain why it was not a productive argument.
You are also glossing over an argument of mine: this issue with Olympus is not being revived because anyone is shocked that Sims 4 is Olympus. No, we all more or less "knew" that because it was obvious. This issue is back because it's proof EA withholds information that they view as potentially damaging for the image of this game, and this implies both that we cannot trust any good news they provide us with if worded vaguely (it's different if stated in a definitive way, such as if a Guru told us they were planning on releasing X more expansions and gave an exact number), and that there may be more skeletons in the closet. I once speculated City Living buildings don't have lobbies because their technology cannot support multi-storied lots like in Sims 3, thus they're forced to make the lot float in the sky while everything below it is an illusion. A basis for this argument was that they may have more limited tech due to Olympus and also in accordance with an old tweet a Guru provided, and now that Olympus is all but confirmed, it provides some new perspective on just how limiting the engine may be. What if we didn't get lobbies or elevators because of Olympus? What is Pets going to be skipping because of Olympus?
If you are going to insist on that argument, then I will insist upon the one that I said highlights the absurdity of yours: please prove "a lot" of customers are fully satisfied with the current experience.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
Exactly this. My save is actively unplayable. I was not happy with the state that TS3 was left at, but at least I can somewhat play it. And that was already unacceptable. TS4 bugs are remaining untouched. Gameplay lag and time distortion being the biggest ones, but there's also bugged careers from as far as GTW that I'm pretty sure will never be fixed. The product is in such state that if it was any other lesser known company and not a popular franchise, it would have been condemned by the player base and left to die a long time ago.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I feel like base game of TS4 is less satisfactory than either of the previous base games. There's less family based interactions, children outside of having neat aspirations of their own kind of just act like mini adults and teens might as well be adults, as they even LOOK adult. We got toddlers now, which honestly feel far more satisfying than toddlers ever did, but the rest of life stages feel like carbon copies of each other with little care put into them.
Traits for the most part only influence emotions and emotions can be counteracted by decor. No sim will actually have the personality that you want them to have as long as you can provide 5 paintings with aura of their own. Aspirations are repetitive. The game also has no memory. Everyone is everywhere as whatever the game needs them to be. There are children in the club, adults will call children out on dates, enemies will want to get it spicy with each other. The game doesn't remember the tiniest little bit of information about my sims. Playing rotational is hell due to relationship decay.
As for extra content, I don't feel like the game was expanded in any meaningful way with expansions so far. If anything they felt a bit shallow and GPs felt like they were too focused on one niche thing. Therefore my statement on less meaningful content.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
I used the word "a lot" based on what I see. I see people in discord saying that they're bored, I see constant threads in the forums asking for more expansions and less stuff packs, in general I see many bored people. I did not know how to better express myself honestly. For all I know those bored people might make up 2% of the whole player base. Could be even less. However this is what I am seeing and this is what people around me are saying they're feeling. So from my own perspective I could probably provide a couple of hundred of other peoples statements. That for me is "a lot". That is precisely why I did not say "everyone", or "a big percentage of the player base" or "the majority". I have no way to validate that. So I said "a lot".
edit: on the swaying opinion part. Whose opinion can I sway? I have lost hope that developers even remotely care. I don't think that they're even reading this. If anything is even communicated to them that would be the feedback section, not the general.
As for swaying other players opinions? Do you feel less satisfied with your gaming experience because I'm unsatisfied with mine? Let's play the devils advocate and say that I scared off a few people with my comments. Suddenly they turned around and went "I don't want to play The Sims anymore", well what do I matter in the grand scheme of things when EA has hired quite a few dozen influencers all with over 100K subscriber base?
@SimGuruDrake It's not that we don't love the game and the series, it's because we love it so much we like to have our bug fixes to make the game playable. We care enough and that's why we "complain". I spend money on this game, money I work hard for, we deserve to know when some serious issues are getting fixed and if we're told the truth about things. It's not personal, it's just some things we think about and struggle with. I've been playing since the Sims 1, the least we deserve is a working game with minimal bugs and glitches and that works when new packs are added.
It's not only that, it's things we miss a lot. When City Living was going to be released I set my heart out to be able to build my own apartments, to let my creativity lose since i'm a builder. However, we couldn't and only had apartments in one world. I was so heartbroken I decided to not buy it at full price, because when I got Sims 2 apartments there was so much more gameplay for me that I spend ages on, which was actually worth the 40 bucks. Maybe you don't realise how long we've been playing and how expensive the series is? We're just asking for more options to play, to really dive into the game. I want to build my own world, create from the ground up, like i've always been able to. That's it..
I wasn't going to comment on this thread but you really hit the nail on the head with this! I don't think I could have said it any better. I'm so tired of being called complainers, being told to get over it and move on (as if we spend every waking moment worrying about the state of the game but anyway.) I own every piece of content for TS4 to date. But somehow my opinion is less valid because it's more negative? No, that's not fair.
As much as I love 2 and 3 and will never stop playing those games, I'd like to be able to love the newest iteration too. We actually want to like the game, believe it or not. Why else would we keep coming here and expressing our frustration? And to those who like to tell us our feedback doesn't matter...just why do you think the toddlers you waited 2 years for are the best in the series?
A lot of us aren't too happy about the announcement of the sims mobile, myself included. Why does it look almost exactly the same, down to the furniture, clothing, hairs, animations? Why are mobile players getting (most likely) all of this content we waited and paid a lot of money for basically for free? It doesn't make sense.
ETA: I completely understand the frustration and maybe even anger, but Drake isn't to blame for any of this at the end of the day. Maybe cut her a little slack guys?
@mirta000 I wanna point out something because I have the sneaking suspicion a lot of people didn't actively read the article (or accidently skimmed over important parts), since admittedly it's quite easy to zone out when one encounters programmer jargon they don't understand. If you all go back and look at the article, check this snippet here:
The biggest reason, is the way the game is structured today. If you aren’t aware, The Sims 4 is split into two main components. You have the modding-friendly Python code (script mods), and the typically closed-off C++. These two languages do not talk to each other, so instead they’re bridged by something called Protocol Buffers, or “Protobuf”. Protobuf is a great technology but typically one you would use for data interchange over networks. In my observation, it seems the whole reason we received this open python code is because the programmers needed to replace the client portion of the game quickly when they pivoted to offline. The C++ portion is most likely the original server portion of the game. I cannot confirm the following, but I suspect this bridged communication is a large part of why the simulation has trouble keeping pace at higher speeds.
This is exactly why I shake my head when people act like this revelation about Olympus is irrelevant today. Mistakes of the past can have a lasting effect, and given the options of transparency or hiding everything, EA has chosen to sweep everything under the rug and hope we don't notice. We cannot change that Sims 4 is Olympus, but we can try to understand what limitations this has or what it could mean for us now.
And for sake of argument, let's assume @TwistedMexican and his suspicion are correct, and that the non-ideal online engine and the way the C++ and Python components communicate with each other is indeed the cause for these time distortion issues. I wonder if the Sims team has considered this possibility whilst looking into the issue. Last I checked, they wanted save files where the issue occurs, though asking for save files seems oblivious to the fact that this is a fundamental issue with the engine that could affect all users. (but what do I know, I'm no programmer. It may be more of a study of the various causes of the time distortion worsening based on player actions, such as having kids)
This is why I'm so critical of the communication, or lack thereof. Let's say they owned up to Sims 4 being Olympus and communicated that much to us. Let's say they admitted that there are instances where the engine might be more limited. If they did that, it's inevitable that our community would house programmers or tech savvy individuals such as @TwistedMexican who can aid in providing insight on how to identify the source of a problem. I'm certain some would be willing to do so, too. Crinrict does a fantastic job of assisting with bug reports, and I know if I were more tech savvy, I'd love to provide aid to some of these problems too. But when they close us off to any and all info however, those users cannot do that as actively as they perhaps could.
It's understandable why they would want to withhold information like this. They want to protect their image, they want speculation at a minimum and they don't want everyone freaking out over every instance of bad news. I'm not passing judgement on that decision and calling it ridiculous or unheard of. However, I AM commenting on the ramnifications of this. I think it's important to understand the ramnifications and all it's positives and negatives. Both the ramnifications of a limited engine in relation to our bugs and expansions, and the ramnifications of not being able to rely on community feedback as heavily because we're often fumbling in the dark in regards to the status of Sims 4.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
It depends on who thinks it's more bugged than TS3. There are many days I can't play this game very long due to the lag, jittering, freezing which started off and on last May (a year ago) and has only continued to get worse, happens sometimes at certain times of day, causes the blue screen of death etc. I never know if it will be five minutes or thirty before implodes. They have mentioned in a very long list what things may cause this in the game and these horrible problems are known to them. Along with other programs that this game may conflict with for some unknown reason. (DRM? may be the culprit), and from my experience yes, TS4 is buggier than TS3 on this machine. Edited to add, I appreciate the modder exposing the code which if parts of Olympus are left over (he/she explained it better than I can) could be a reason ( a particular system language) causes this game to not run well during ultra speed. In the end all that stuff still matters no matter who thinks it doesn't. And being a long time fan of The Sims series I notice most things. And one EP a year is slow in my opinion. And I will just add this before I leave for the evening. If players didn't agree about some things, like the slow turn over of EPs then LazyGamer wouldn't have gotten more than 50,000 likes/thumbsup for his Two Years of Meh video. So, yes, Drake we do notice. Even at the two year mark we were well aware this schedule is not entertaining folks enough. EPs matter for the expansion of the core. (And personally when a good developer leaves EA or this game or any other players do notice the quality of what follows.) Always, if they are diehard fans and observant. ETA: Personally, I noticed the minute TS2 was handed to The Sims Studio and Ron Humble took over. (I won't go into if that was good or bad) but with the release of Free Time I was thinking what the heck. (total departure structure from the sandbox).
Post edited by Cinebar on
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
I hope they do not try to make Sims 5 online and multi player as well, if we even see a Sims 5. I am beginning to like Sims 4 even though it is watered down it can be made better. If they do make Sims 5 I hope to see at least open neighborhoods, CASt, colorwheel, things to make the game more customized for us simmers.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
asking how much is a lot just leads to "well you can not prove those exact numbers so unless you can prove those numbers you can only speak for yourself".
This has had zero impact on our development. You don't know how long we've been working on this project (and no I will not discuss it as it is not my place) and you didn't even seem to notice the change until a SimGuru mentioned it.
I'm sorry what? I don't want to sound disrespectful, but where have you been the past year or so? It is often discussed how slow the EP are coming, it was said by Graham (if I remember correctly), that the EP production would slow down to one a year beside every few months.
We did notice the change, the right thing to say would be to say we didn't knew why, but saying that we didn't even notice is insulting, and it show that you think we are plum.
YASSS MAMA! COME THROUGH SNATCH HER WIG!
actually he apparently said there is only one sims team working the full expansion packs right now and they can only produce expansion packs 8 months to a year. granted i am not exactly sure what the difference between getting 1 ep a year but apparently there is one.
I will give you this one warning: Please refrain from making statements about what I do and do not think of this community.
The Sims 4 is a different game compared to the past iterations and we are treating it differently. From the content we produce to the way we market the product. You assumed that we were going to keep things the way they were before, that was not something we confirmed nor did we ever promise that we would do that with this iteration. What we have done is brought a new experience into the Stuff Packs, introduced Game Packs, and have been bringing new experiences with our Expansion Packs. We made the decision prior to The Sims 4 releasing to no longer have split teams (meaning not all at EARS) which has proven to be in the best interest of the game and having a stable product since all things are developed side by side and can be cross checked with one another.
However TS4 currently is more bugged than TS3 ever was. Meaning how is it a more stable product when it's boarderline unplayable?
What does best interest for the game mean even? Best profits for EA? Or what the buyers prefer? Because one thing that is very obvious to me is that buyers are not asking for this slew of stuff packs and that a lot of people are feeling the content drought all the time, even though you release more often, because you're releasing less meaningful content.
Ok, so I'd like to know what information you have that I am missing that confirms what you're saying.
"TS4 is more bugged than TS3" In what way?
"borderline unplayable" In what way is it unplayable?
"a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" What is a lot and who are they?
"less meaningful content" Isn't that just an opinion-based value judgment?
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
Yes, I'm serious. A lot isn't a definitive term for size. People can mean vastly different numbers by it.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
They're called weasel words, though now we're getting into arguing semantics, which I personally just don't care much for. If I felt there was some justification to believe the people she's named are a very insignificant minority that's being played up in terms of importance, then sure, but I don't feel that way. I think at the very least, those people are numerous enough to count as "non-insignificant," so whether they're the minority or majority isn't my focus so much as my focus is that clearly steps could be taken to improve customer satisfaction.
I'd much rather try to understand what she's trying to say and continue with the discussion, instead of scrutinizing poor word choice.
So because you have a feeling that the number she named is significant, I should give it a pass? Coming from someone who scrutinizes virtually everything? Come on. And I don't mean that as a criticism saying you scrutinize virtually everything. I'm just saying, come on man. You're preaching to me about scrutinizing word choice when scrutinizing is 90% of what you do on these forums. And then you're not going to scrutinize this one point in particular because you have a "feeling" that the number is non-insignificant? I am so not giving that one a pass.
On top of that, you're implying I should be trying to understand instead of scrutinizing the point, when I did try to understand what she's trying to say and just told you I talked to her beyond that and, at some point, felt connected to her experiences and frustrations.
This whole line of discussion is making an issue out of something that has already passed and ended without incident. If mirta wants to take issue with something I said, she is welcome to. As far as I'm concerned, the two of us had some reasonable back and forth, and that was that.
I'm done entertaining this line of discussion with you.
You mean to tell me that, as a small sample, LGR's "Two years of Meh" video criticizing the Sims 4 has half a million views alongside a like-dislike ratio of 98% of those liking/disliking saying they enjoy the video (with 19,000 voting), and those that are dissatisfied with Sims 4's performance are an insignificant minority? You mean to tell me that you would browse this very thread or forums and say that the critics are an insignificant minority? You mean to tell me that the Sims 4's lackluster launch and ongoing lackluster rating are not evidence of consumer dissatisfaction with this product? (and by all means give those reviews a look, since some are clear garbage and the recommended 10/10 review is biting sarcasm...)
Take a sample size from any community and I think you'll find that at the very least, describing the critics and the feelings of dissatisfaction as "non-insignificant" is a very fair description.
There comes a time when you need to ask yourself if you aren't bending over backwards to try and make excuses to downplay your opposition. You are not tackling any of mirta's arguments regarding the game, the development rate, or the bugs. Instead you insist on semantics and insist upon what's more or less an impossible argument that I took painstaking effort to try and explain why it was not a productive argument.
You are also glossing over an argument of mine: this issue with Olympus is not being revived because anyone is shocked that Sims 4 is Olympus. No, we all more or less "knew" that because it was obvious. This issue is back because it's proof EA withholds information that they view as potentially damaging for the image of this game, and this implies both that we cannot trust any good news they provide us with if worded vaguely (it's different if stated in a definitive way, such as if a Guru told us they were planning on releasing X more expansions and gave an exact number), and that there may be more skeletons in the closet. I once speculated City Living buildings don't have lobbies because their technology cannot support multi-storied lots like in Sims 3, thus they're forced to make the lot float in the sky while everything below it is an illusion. A basis for this argument was that they may have more limited tech due to Olympus and also in accordance with an old tweet a Guru provided, and now that Olympus is all but confirmed, it provides some new perspective on just how limiting the engine may be. What if we didn't get lobbies or elevators because of Olympus? What is Pets going to be skipping because of Olympus?
If you are going to insist on that argument, then I will insist upon the one that I said highlights the absurdity of yours: please prove "a lot" of customers are fully satisfied with the current experience.
you bring up such a good point. because they never fully gave a good explantion as to why we cant build apparentments other then well building appartments would take away from telling stories um okay sure building appartments takes away from telling stories. and the defense is more or less the same defense for not needing to visually improve teens well it makes all the sense in the world to not build your own appartments in city living since you do not own them. -_-
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
Exactly this. My save is actively unplayable. I was not happy with the state that TS3 was left at, but at least I can somewhat play it. And that was already unacceptable. TS4 bugs are remaining untouched. Gameplay lag and time distortion being the biggest ones, but there's also bugged careers from as far as GTW that I'm pretty sure will never be fixed. The product is in such state that if it was any other lesser known company and not a popular franchise, it would have been condemned by the player base and left to die a long time ago.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
I feel like base game of TS4 is less satisfactory than either of the previous base games. There's less family based interactions, children outside of having neat aspirations of their own kind of just act like mini adults and teens might as well be adults, as they even LOOK adult. We got toddlers now, which honestly feel far more satisfying than toddlers ever did, but the rest of life stages feel like carbon copies of each other with little care put into them.
Traits for the most part only influence emotions and emotions can be counteracted by decor. No sim will actually have the personality that you want them to have as long as you can provide 5 paintings with aura of their own. Aspirations are repetitive. The game also has no memory. Everyone is everywhere as whatever the game needs them to be. There are children in the club, adults will call children out on dates, enemies will want to get it spicy with each other. The game doesn't remember the tiniest little bit of information about my sims. Playing rotational is plum due to relationship decay.
As for extra content, I don't feel like the game was expanded in any meaningful way with expansions so far. If anything they felt a bit shallow and GPs felt like they were too focused on one niche thing. Therefore my statement on less meaningful content.
I don't expect mirta to say "612 players, here's a tabulated list." I was challenging the claim. Saying "a lot are feeling the content drought all the time" is not structured as a statement of opinion, even if the intention is to share an opinion. It's structured like a statement of fact. It's also one of those statements that uses a phrase ("a lot," "many," etc.) to convey an idea of size without needing to demonstrate actual numbers. These types of statements are typically used in the context of trying to sway opinion through emotional appeals, as in, "Look at how bad it is for us and how horrible our experience is. Something must be done about this because of the sheer scale of the problem."
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
I used the word "a lot" based on what I see. I see people in discord saying that they're bored, I see constant threads in the forums asking for more expansions and less stuff packs, in general I see many bored people. I did not know how to better express myself honestly. For all I know those bored people might make up 2% of the whole player base. Could be even less. However this is what I am seeing and this is what people around me are saying they're feeling. So from my own perspective I could probably provide a couple of hundred of other peoples statements. That for me is "a lot". That is precisely why I did not say "everyone", or "a big percentage of the player base" or "the majority". I have no way to validate that. So I said "a lot".
edit: on the swaying opinion part. Whose opinion can I sway? I have lost hope that developers even remotely care. I don't think that they're even reading this. If anything is even communicated to them that would be the feedback section, not the general.
As for swaying other players opinions? Do you feel less satisfied with your gaming experience because I'm unsatisfied with mine? Let's play the devils advocate and say that I scared off a few people with my comments. Suddenly they turned around and went "I don't want to play The Sims anymore", well what do I matter in the grand scheme of things when EA has hired quite a few dozen influencers all with over 100K subscriber base?
the aittude people have to bugs is well its more then likely cuz of mods, your computer just sucks(yes somehow it can suck even if its top of the line) or you just did something odd with your computer to make it conflict with the code, did you talk to anyone about work arounds did you report it. if none of those things work well just wait and hopefully they will fix those bugs and if not well nothing you can do about it -_-
Comments
'What is a lot'??? Are you serious...OMG
WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?
And of course, You can't spell Steal without EA.
They don't much care about their image, as long as people buy their games.
EA's view of a customer is based on the old phrase: "There's a sucker born every minute."
What makes me trust them a lot less is just how many of our ideas, from ideas and feedback are being incorporated into the mobile games and NOT into TS4... It really does look like they're veering away from the PC and directing the sims into a mobile form.
They don't care enough to want to reassure you, as far as they're concerned if they lose every complainer as a customer, there's always someone else who will buy it, and if not... No worries, the game will simply be closed down and EA will say that the Sims niche is no longer popular.
EA never ever sees anything as being their fault.
I'm just chiming in to try and save both of you a headache chasing a difficult-to-follow direction for the argument. I'll ask this as a counter question: what does it matter?
The issue with proving "a lot" is that no one in this discussion has any way to provide any tangible numbers on how many people feel that way. Even if mirta were psychic and could somehow tell you that "416,230 Sims customers are frustrated with the content count," you could then ask what percentage of the total customers that is and we may not know the answer to that. Asking to define "a lot" ultimately sends the discussion into an absolutely absurd hunt for knowledge and numbers that likely can't be appealed to. We can more or less prove this by flipping the question and asking you to instead prove that the people who are content with the amount of content we get are the majority; once again that's a ridiculous request that we cannot realistically expect you to fulfill.
That's why I ask "what does it matter?" I would argue that given the frequency of complaints, the various places where we can see these complaints, the correlation between the lackluster launch that we KNOW was not their best Sims release and the slow EP rate (both have something in common: they lack content as the main fan complaint), the popularity of videos such as this one, and a number of other areas, I believe we could at the very least agree a "non-insignificant" amount of people are indeed annoyed with the release rate. That at least defines that group of people as being significant enough in size that the company has an interest in at least hearing them out.
The rest of your earlier post only highlights that mirta has opinions, which should be a given, or asks for clarifications I think I can safely provide; I think I know what she means, anyways. Not trying to speak on her behalf though, so when she gets back of course I would want to hear her tell me if I'm wrong and express her opinion in her own words.
That TS4 is buggier than TS3....? Apples and oranges, but I think what matters is that both are buggy ENOUGH to be considered to be in an unacceptable state, but that can still be resolved for Sims 4 and absolutely should be.
That it's borderline unplayable, I imagine she's referring to gameplay lag, time distortion and various other delays that tend to worsen as a file grows in size. You may or may not be experiencing this, as the growing lag is accelerated by certain playstyles moreso than others.
And as for less meaningful content, while this is opinion-based, in the past I've made attempts to highlight how certain types of customers are being completely neglected. For example in another thread, a guy was complaining that an Evil sim in Sims 4 is much nicer and easier to get along with than a mean Sim and Sims 1, making the current personality traits rather weak and meaningless. For him, this game is absolutely neglecting the personality traits that the Sims series once had, which is obviously important to him. At the very least, there are clear ways in which this game does not cater to certain aspects that past titles once did.
(we didn't really understand why players didn't like it, come oooooooooooooooon!!!!)
... I think this part was totally acceptable in more than one way:
Yeah I'm mixed on it too so I didn't comment. It's not as bad as it sounded, but it's still a little odd to hear any hint that they had trouble understanding the problem with Sims 3's system. In Sims 1 we had to work our butts off to become a celebrity. In Sims 3, you were going to become a celebrity if you were co-workers with a celebrity. It was pretty ridiculous, and it took away a sense of control from the player and just assumed all of us want to be rich and famous 5 star celebrities.
It's structured as a persuasion strategy, in other words. When I talked to mirta (in this same thread, shortly after that post) about her experiences with bugs and got more details, I felt connected to her experiences and frustrations with the game, and like I could better see where she was coming from. The talk structured as persuasion strategy, I didn't feel any such connection.
"Here's my invitation baby. Hope it set us free, to know each other better. Put your love all over me"
-"Invitation" Britney Spears.
R.I.P The Sims.
Their lack of understanding is almost as bad as the infamous 'telemetry' argument.
I always disabled celebrities in TS3 because of how broken it was. Celebrity status was like an incurable virus or disease. The second one sim encountered a celebrity it spread like wildfire and in a short span of time all of the sims in your household were five star celebrities.
I like the idea of having famous sims and even playing with one. But I wish it would have been incredibly hard to even become a one star celebrity and increase in difficulty to level up in status. Like, make your sims really have to work for it. Make it challenging. I think that would make the game more interesting.
YASSS MAMA! COME THROUGH SNATCH HER WIG!
"Here's my invitation baby. Hope it set us free, to know each other better. Put your love all over me"
-"Invitation" Britney Spears.
R.I.P The Sims.
They're called weasel words, though now we're getting into arguing semantics, which I personally just don't care much for. If I felt there was some justification to believe the people she's named are a very insignificant minority that's being played up in terms of importance, then sure, but I don't feel that way. I think at the very least, those people are numerous enough to count as "non-insignificant," so whether they're the minority or majority isn't my focus so much as my focus is that clearly steps could be taken to improve customer satisfaction.
I'd much rather try to understand what she's trying to say and continue with the discussion, instead of scrutinizing poor word choice.
On top of that, you're implying I should be trying to understand instead of scrutinizing the point, when I did try to understand what she's trying to say and just told you I talked to her beyond that and, at some point, felt connected to her experiences and frustrations.
This whole line of discussion is making an issue out of something that has already passed and ended without incident. If mirta wants to take issue with something I said, she is welcome to. As far as I'm concerned, the two of us had some reasonable back and forth, and that was that.
I'm done entertaining this line of discussion with you.
You mean to tell me that, as a small sample, LGR's "Two years of Meh" video criticizing the Sims 4 has half a million views alongside a like-dislike ratio of 98% of those liking/disliking saying they enjoy the video (with 19,000 voting), and those that are dissatisfied with Sims 4's performance are an insignificant minority? You mean to tell me that you would browse this very thread or forums and say that the critics are an insignificant minority? You mean to tell me that the Sims 4's lackluster launch and ongoing lackluster rating are not evidence of consumer dissatisfaction with this product? (and by all means give those reviews a look, since some are clear garbage and the recommended 10/10 review is biting sarcasm...)
Take a sample size from any community and I think you'll find that at the very least, describing the critics and the feelings of dissatisfaction as "non-insignificant" is a very fair description.
There comes a time when you need to ask yourself if you aren't bending over backwards to try and make excuses to downplay your opposition. You are not tackling any of mirta's arguments regarding the game, the development rate, or the bugs. Instead you insist on semantics and insist upon what's more or less an impossible argument that I took painstaking effort to try and explain why it was not a productive argument.
You are also glossing over an argument of mine: this issue with Olympus is not being revived because anyone is shocked that Sims 4 is Olympus. No, we all more or less "knew" that because it was obvious. This issue is back because it's proof EA withholds information that they view as potentially damaging for the image of this game, and this implies both that we cannot trust any good news they provide us with if worded vaguely (it's different if stated in a definitive way, such as if a Guru told us they were planning on releasing X more expansions and gave an exact number), and that there may be more skeletons in the closet. I once speculated City Living buildings don't have lobbies because their technology cannot support multi-storied lots like in Sims 3, thus they're forced to make the lot float in the sky while everything below it is an illusion. A basis for this argument was that they may have more limited tech due to Olympus and also in accordance with an old tweet a Guru provided, and now that Olympus is all but confirmed, it provides some new perspective on just how limiting the engine may be. What if we didn't get lobbies or elevators because of Olympus? What is Pets going to be skipping because of Olympus?
If you are going to insist on that argument, then I will insist upon the one that I said highlights the absurdity of yours: please prove "a lot" of customers are fully satisfied with the current experience.
Exactly this. My save is actively unplayable. I was not happy with the state that TS3 was left at, but at least I can somewhat play it. And that was already unacceptable. TS4 bugs are remaining untouched. Gameplay lag and time distortion being the biggest ones, but there's also bugged careers from as far as GTW that I'm pretty sure will never be fixed. The product is in such state that if it was any other lesser known company and not a popular franchise, it would have been condemned by the player base and left to die a long time ago.
I feel like base game of TS4 is less satisfactory than either of the previous base games. There's less family based interactions, children outside of having neat aspirations of their own kind of just act like mini adults and teens might as well be adults, as they even LOOK adult. We got toddlers now, which honestly feel far more satisfying than toddlers ever did, but the rest of life stages feel like carbon copies of each other with little care put into them.
Traits for the most part only influence emotions and emotions can be counteracted by decor. No sim will actually have the personality that you want them to have as long as you can provide 5 paintings with aura of their own. Aspirations are repetitive. The game also has no memory. Everyone is everywhere as whatever the game needs them to be. There are children in the club, adults will call children out on dates, enemies will want to get it spicy with each other. The game doesn't remember the tiniest little bit of information about my sims. Playing rotational is hell due to relationship decay.
As for extra content, I don't feel like the game was expanded in any meaningful way with expansions so far. If anything they felt a bit shallow and GPs felt like they were too focused on one niche thing. Therefore my statement on less meaningful content.
I used the word "a lot" based on what I see. I see people in discord saying that they're bored, I see constant threads in the forums asking for more expansions and less stuff packs, in general I see many bored people. I did not know how to better express myself honestly. For all I know those bored people might make up 2% of the whole player base. Could be even less. However this is what I am seeing and this is what people around me are saying they're feeling. So from my own perspective I could probably provide a couple of hundred of other peoples statements. That for me is "a lot". That is precisely why I did not say "everyone", or "a big percentage of the player base" or "the majority". I have no way to validate that. So I said "a lot".
edit: on the swaying opinion part. Whose opinion can I sway? I have lost hope that developers even remotely care. I don't think that they're even reading this. If anything is even communicated to them that would be the feedback section, not the general.
As for swaying other players opinions? Do you feel less satisfied with your gaming experience because I'm unsatisfied with mine? Let's play the devils advocate and say that I scared off a few people with my comments. Suddenly they turned around and went "I don't want to play The Sims anymore", well what do I matter in the grand scheme of things when EA has hired quite a few dozen influencers all with over 100K subscriber base?
I wasn't going to comment on this thread but you really hit the nail on the head with this! I don't think I could have said it any better. I'm so tired of being called complainers, being told to get over it and move on (as if we spend every waking moment worrying about the state of the game but anyway.) I own every piece of content for TS4 to date. But somehow my opinion is less valid because it's more negative? No, that's not fair.
As much as I love 2 and 3 and will never stop playing those games, I'd like to be able to love the newest iteration too. We actually want to like the game, believe it or not. Why else would we keep coming here and expressing our frustration? And to those who like to tell us our feedback doesn't matter...just why do you think the toddlers you waited 2 years for are the best in the series?
A lot of us aren't too happy about the announcement of the sims mobile, myself included. Why does it look almost exactly the same, down to the furniture, clothing, hairs, animations? Why are mobile players getting (most likely) all of this content we waited and paid a lot of money for basically for free? It doesn't make sense.
ETA: I completely understand the frustration and maybe even anger, but Drake isn't to blame for any of this at the end of the day. Maybe cut her a little slack guys?
This is exactly why I shake my head when people act like this revelation about Olympus is irrelevant today. Mistakes of the past can have a lasting effect, and given the options of transparency or hiding everything, EA has chosen to sweep everything under the rug and hope we don't notice. We cannot change that Sims 4 is Olympus, but we can try to understand what limitations this has or what it could mean for us now.
And for sake of argument, let's assume @TwistedMexican and his suspicion are correct, and that the non-ideal online engine and the way the C++ and Python components communicate with each other is indeed the cause for these time distortion issues. I wonder if the Sims team has considered this possibility whilst looking into the issue. Last I checked, they wanted save files where the issue occurs, though asking for save files seems oblivious to the fact that this is a fundamental issue with the engine that could affect all users. (but what do I know, I'm no programmer. It may be more of a study of the various causes of the time distortion worsening based on player actions, such as having kids)
This is why I'm so critical of the communication, or lack thereof. Let's say they owned up to Sims 4 being Olympus and communicated that much to us. Let's say they admitted that there are instances where the engine might be more limited. If they did that, it's inevitable that our community would house programmers or tech savvy individuals such as @TwistedMexican who can aid in providing insight on how to identify the source of a problem. I'm certain some would be willing to do so, too. Crinrict does a fantastic job of assisting with bug reports, and I know if I were more tech savvy, I'd love to provide aid to some of these problems too. But when they close us off to any and all info however, those users cannot do that as actively as they perhaps could.
It's understandable why they would want to withhold information like this. They want to protect their image, they want speculation at a minimum and they don't want everyone freaking out over every instance of bad news. I'm not passing judgement on that decision and calling it ridiculous or unheard of. However, I AM commenting on the ramnifications of this. I think it's important to understand the ramnifications and all it's positives and negatives. Both the ramnifications of a limited engine in relation to our bugs and expansions, and the ramnifications of not being able to rely on community feedback as heavily because we're often fumbling in the dark in regards to the status of Sims 4.
It depends on who thinks it's more bugged than TS3. There are many days I can't play this game very long due to the lag, jittering, freezing which started off and on last May (a year ago) and has only continued to get worse, happens sometimes at certain times of day, causes the blue screen of death etc. I never know if it will be five minutes or thirty before implodes. They have mentioned in a very long list what things may cause this in the game and these horrible problems are known to them. Along with other programs that this game may conflict with for some unknown reason. (DRM? may be the culprit), and from my experience yes, TS4 is buggier than TS3 on this machine. Edited to add, I appreciate the modder exposing the code which if parts of Olympus are left over (he/she explained it better than I can) could be a reason ( a particular system language) causes this game to not run well during ultra speed. In the end all that stuff still matters no matter who thinks it doesn't. And being a long time fan of The Sims series I notice most things. And one EP a year is slow in my opinion. And I will just add this before I leave for the evening. If players didn't agree about some things, like the slow turn over of EPs then LazyGamer wouldn't have gotten more than 50,000 likes/thumbsup for his Two Years of Meh video. So, yes, Drake we do notice. Even at the two year mark we were well aware this schedule is not entertaining folks enough. EPs matter for the expansion of the core. (And personally when a good developer leaves EA or this game or any other players do notice the quality of what follows.) Always, if they are diehard fans and observant. ETA: Personally, I noticed the minute TS2 was handed to The Sims Studio and Ron Humble took over. (I won't go into if that was good or bad) but with the release of Free Time I was thinking what the heck. (total departure structure from the sandbox).
asking how much is a lot just leads to "well you can not prove those exact numbers so unless you can prove those numbers you can only speak for yourself".
actually he apparently said there is only one sims team working the full expansion packs right now and they can only produce expansion packs 8 months to a year. granted i am not exactly sure what the difference between getting 1 ep a year but apparently there is one.
you bring up such a good point. because they never fully gave a good explantion as to why we cant build apparentments other then well building appartments would take away from telling stories um okay sure building appartments takes away from telling stories. and the defense is more or less the same defense for not needing to visually improve teens well it makes all the sense in the world to not build your own appartments in city living since you do not own them. -_-
the aittude people have to bugs is well its more then likely cuz of mods, your computer just sucks(yes somehow it can suck even if its top of the line) or you just did something odd with your computer to make it conflict with the code, did you talk to anyone about work arounds did you report it. if none of those things work well just wait and hopefully they will fix those bugs and if not well nothing you can do about it -_-