My whole thought was Ts4 was going to be the best of all 3 games. The quirkyness of 1 and 2, the open world and customaztion of 3, the actual bookstore, places to eat, etc like 1 and later 2, the fun of the various expansions of all 3, weather and swiming in the ocean in base game cause by now that should be a given..if they could do it in 2 and 3 there was no reason not to be able to do it in 4 at the start. 4 could have been the epic game that everyone wanted...the online could have been a seperate game. They could have gotten both groups, plus if they had done the best of all three everyone would have been represented. Family, sandbox, story, builders etc. It could have been so awsome instead of what we got.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole topic about young adults/adults was introduced to illustrate that toddlers could be just as important to one person as young adults are to someone else. The same people who are complaining about the people complaining about the absence of toddlers would be just as vocal if they removed their preferred age stage from the game.
Also, I did play TS2 as well as TS3 and I never felt that my YAs should be limited in what they could do. Many real life people start their families as YAs, plus we are also free to imagine them as any age range we want. There were no rules in the previous games.
As for adding life stages, I'd like both a pre-teen stage as well as an Adult stage that was split into Adult/ Mature Adult (or whatever they want to name them). To me The Sims has always been about the sims and the simulation of human relationships, so more ages and detailed simulations are better than fewer age stages and fewer simulations. We're missing both in TS4, unfortunately.
The Sims
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
You might be satisfied with paying the price for AAA game that were not given an AAA game but many of us are not. As far as I'm concerned for a game to be called a life simulation game it has to include all stages of life like previous sims games.
If this is your opinion/vision about the game, I am fine with that. However to me TS4 already feels like a AAA title. Also I really do not care for toddlers at all, so nope, toddlers are not necessarily an element I consider a "core" feature for "my" (!) life sim. I am sure many people will disagree. No problem.
Funny. That's how I feel about young adults. I'd be perfectly fine if they took "young adult" out from the life stages and never included them again. I don't see the need for them and I'm glad Sims 2 stuck them to university (though the downside is they get a bad memory for not attending university; ugh!). Yet I'm pretty sure if the YA stage was taken out, people would be angry too. Oh, well. That's not my problem. I got mine. Everybody else can kick rocks.
Selfish, isn't it?
You want to play kids and wrinkled sims ?
Che cosa?! No! I meant only the young adult stage, not adulthood entirely!
In my game the young adults are the young attractive ones. When they become adult they get wrinkles. If I really had to choose I'd rather skip A and keep YA. But I don't, I think it's a good thing a 20 year old in the game doesn't look the same as a 50 year old. The leap between a YA and an elder would feel just as odd to me as the leap from baby to ten year old. I don't see a difference there.
the first 10 years of the Sims there was no YA full play life stage. We only got the YA life stage as an equal life stage in Sims 3. In Sims 2 YA's were only allowed in UNI and could not have kids, get married or do anything out side of Uni towns. So we actually only got used to them in Sims 3 and I still never let a Sims 3 YA have kids - they were just glorified teens in my game with the ability to focus on career and dating and just having fun. Maxis made the lifestage to represent 19- 32 year olds, so the Ads were 33 - the early 50's, not the wrinkly ages really, and the fact Sims could have babies up until 6 days before they turned elders - meant none of the Sim Ads were over 54/55 seeing they could have children. Maxis even added fertility treatments in Sims 3 to help those in their late 40's and early 50's to have a baby and did make it harder to impossible for any sims within their last few days of adult hood to conceive. They slack of course in Sims 4 - which is nutty to me, but was much more sensible in Sims 3 where we could also make the epic aging and extend it with slider. We often did request a middle age though, where sims did wrinkle, and had no ability to have kids period, as Sims adults are not supposed to be wrinkly and considered old - so you could say that is another life stage the game - for reality sakes could be served well to have added. We could use more life stages if anything - not less. As the Sims 4 elder stage actually looks like that stage I feel that is missing to represent the still very youthful, but wrinkling 55 - 70 year olds which again also should not have kids - at least the human females anyway. I suppose if one started with Sims 3 - they just assume the YA's were always in the game - when as I said they only were a full fledged sim in Sims 3 - so some of us playing for 15 years - still find it odd to think of them as the main sims stage - which to me always fell on the Sims Adults. Think of it this way a YA of 19 has a baby and 3 days later that baby is 10 and the YA is still 19. No wonder the game has incest - that is saying it is okay for a 9 year old to have a baby apparently. I am not comfortable with that - so Sims 3 and Sims 4 YA did not have babies in my game at least until they were at least half way through the YA age in Sims 3 and near the end of the ya stage in Sims 4. Even then, I only had one baby born in Sims 4 and totally got so freaked out by the 10 year coming out of the bassinet just like it freaked me out in Sims 1 - maybe worse seeing I grew used to having them turn to toddlers for 10 years - that I never tried playing with families since. LOL. It's just unnatural and no amount of reminding me it is just a game will change that. A lot about sims is unnatural - but none are as shocking as that.
I think I understand the confusion now, maybe it's the people who are used to Sims 2 who are having a problem with the concept of YA because they couldn't make the move to Sims 3? Because young adults look completely mature to me in the game and quite capable of raising kids. The adults look over 40 to me and I like it that way in my game. But of course I started playing this game with S3, so I never realised it wasn't like that always.
I prefer the way adulthood is divided in two in Sims 3 and 4. I remember reading a Sims 2 story once, where the father of the main character looked like a boy to me and I never really understood (having never played Sims 2 back then myself and my Sims 2 family now is still young). There just were no real adults (people over 40) in the game. There were teens, college students (called YA) and young adults (called adults).
Adulthood lasts from 20-60. I think that demands two life stages - and we're free what ages we like to put on those life stages - and I consider this an improvement in the franchise if it wasn't like that before. I honestly fail to see why we should need seperate life stages for 12-15 (preteens) and 15-19 (teens) but not for the adults. When I play a 45 year old woman, I want her to look like 45, not 20. I wouldn't mind if they'd give the stages other names if that would help (adult and middle-aged for instance, or Barney and Fred for all I care if it would help getting rid of the association from how things were in Sims 2), but two life stages in adulthood is something I'd most definitely defend under all circumstances. Because it literally adds depth to my game if I'm able to see whether I'm playing with a young man/woman or with a more mature man/woman. I'd miss adults/middle-aged sims just as much as I miss toddlers. And pre-teens in Sims 4 because teens don't look like teens.
This is why I love my aging mod in TS3. My sims grow over time and become wrinkly and gray.
But I agree with you. I like that the ages are separated because I feel like it is clearly defined. I see YA as being 20-40 and Adults as 41-65. At least in TS3 I did. And for me, I like to give my sims time to work a little at their careers and have fun, then start families and be more mature. If I had to do all that in just one lifestage, well, I don't think it would be possible. I know in TS2 I hardly ever reached the top of a career unless that was the only focus of the sim. You had to make a choice on where you wanted to focus all your time and energy. Plus, I prefer to have more time with my sims in general. I grow quite attached to them.
In TS4, the separation of ages is not that great. I can't tell a teen from an adult. Sometimes I can't tell an adult from an elder. It's just crazy how this game is. Plus, there is nothing that defines the different ages. I think that is why some think they should get rid of YA. But in actuality, YA and A are the same. There is no difference besides a couple of lines of code that says one is YA and the other is A. That's it. So it's not like it took any time for them to be added in. Actually, they probably included it as a separate lifestage just to bulk up the lifestages. I mean, toddlers are already missing, could you imagine the backlash if 2 lifestages were missing?
ETA: @jackjack_k Do you not see the very same assets in that Sim's house? Hello, same coffee table, bed, furniture etc. It's all over the place. Just scraped parts being used in this game. ETA: TS4 is not built from scratch but uses Olympus assets and gameplay and worlds and etc.
Obviously the Sims and objects are the same. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying the world "Windunburg" is not the same world that was scrapped in the base game. The base game was a small village with Tudor houses, which I think the devs realized having a "small town" with heaps of Sims walking around from other worlds won't make much sense.
As this image shows, it was more of a quiet country town. Much different to Windunburg, which has been described as a busy town.
They scrapped the world, and kept the Tudor theme. Windunburg is now a busy town, with two commercial areas, and busy residential areas (as shown above) and is also coastal, something the original game was not.
And I dare you (double dare) to quote me if I am wrong, but Windunburg wont have that clock in the game. Because we have already seen the city centre, and it doesnt have the clock.
Literally the only thing that's the same is the "Tudor" theme. Even the original Tudor houses from the scrapped base game world, look different to the ones we get with the new EP.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
And pre-teens in Sims 4 because teens don't look like teens.
Preteens don't always look like teens either. It's kind of stupid to introduce preteens and make them look like teens just because teens suck in TS4. Sure, some preteens do already look like teens. But remembering myself and my friends, I kind of looked like a slightly taller child at the age of 10-13.
We need lifestages 0-10 months (baby) 11 months -3 years (Toddler), 3-6 (Preschool), 10-13 (Preteen), 14-17 (teen), 18-21 (lol - College teen? I don't know what to call it, but I don't know what to call that adult looking teen life stage in TS4 either). 21-33 (YA), 33-49 (middle-aged Adult), 50-59 (older adult? I don't know what to call it) and elder of course.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
Actually, according to one of the simmers that helps out in the tech thread many players are already experiencing difficulty playing the game or unable to play at all with the minimum stats that their computers have since the addition of the gamepacks and expansions they have added to the game. These are players that apparently have the low end machines, not middle or top of the line, but Sims4 was 'designed' to cater to low end machines and they don't tell people that the game won't play with those stats with EP/GP/etc and even in this day and age so many are not 'puter smart' to know the difference. I know I wasn't and learned enuff playing Sims3 to make me half way knowledgeable about some things, ignorant about others. I won't give her name here without talking with her, but, if you want me to PM her so she can confirm this info to you I will. She was talking about this on another thread within the last few days and that is the only reason I have this info today.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
That's because this game has no data running in the background. TS3 had to keep track of the lives of every sim, every object in use, every game mechanic at play, every detail of the world at the same time. It was a data hog, but the game worked, was enjoyable, and had lots to do. TS4 has none of that. It doesn't keep track of anything other than your active family (or whoever is with you because outside of the home they dn't even keep track of what your active family is doing) and social situations happening nearby. That a drop in the bucket compared to what TS3 was doing. So of course TS4 is able to run better with these additions. It's still not doing anything and what they have added has been designed for one sim to do, not groups, not large amounts of sim. Not anything special.
--ETA--
Plus this games specs are low. Anyone with a decent computer can play it. It can be played on a tablet with minor hiccups. So...
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
The size of the patches is completely irrelevant, and honestly so is a comparison to The Sims 3. The Sims 4 is still a very lackluster title, and it has not changed very much since launch.
One player cannot determine when a game loses performance, so my apologies to Deligracy, but he/she cannot come to a conclusion on their own, and neither can you in the case of The Sims 4.
On the topic of how smoothly the game runs; are you really surprised? Take The Sims 3, remove the open word, create a style, any and all intelligent simulation, and limit the game to 20 sims at a time (all close in proximity) and I'm sure it would run like a charm too. The Sims 3 handled a lot of data, The Sims 4 doesn't handle a lot of data. In fact The Sims 4 deletes data constantly. So once again I ask, are you seriously surprised that the game runs smoother?
On the topic of how smoothly the game runs; are you really surprised? Take The Sims 3, remove the open word, create a style, any and all intelligent simulation, and limit the game to 20 sims at a time (all close in proximity) and I'm sure it would run like a charm too. The Sims 3 handled a lot of data, The Sims 4 doesn't handle a lot of data. In fact The Sims 4 deletes data constantly. So once again I ask, are you seriously surprised that the game runs smoother?
You don't even need to take out the open world. Just make the world as small as the ones in TS4 (i.e., limited to 25 lots) and you'll see an increase in performance.
"We've been attributing the state of The Sims 4 to greed but I think it's time to give sheer incompetence another look."
-Honeywell
The only thing that really ticks me off about all this is they released a game that wasn't really 'The Sims,' and they knew that. Many of us realized this on our own through gameplay that felt off and more like Story Mode. But the real ticker here is they had the gull to say if S4 didn't do well, there wouldn't be an S5?
There is a huge difference between the main game and its offshoots. Those of us who've played both know this. I said from the beginning that S4 felt more like a Story offshoot (even though I liked it at the time).
So, what I don't get is why on earth should this have any impact at all on whether or not there is an S5? Why would they sell us a Story version, relabel it as a main game, and then threaten us to buy it?
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
maybe you need to check others forum sections before make some "statments" which looks like you really don't do, we already have peoples complain over the game become too burden and in some cases is just by the patchs not even the expansions, again just because you don't have don't means which everyone don't have.
I just wanted to add my voice to those who have thanked you to take the time to post on the thread.
I am one of those, also, who bought not only a computer but a laptop too, to be able to play Sims 3 and 4. I do what it takes to play the game that has been part of my life for 15 years now. (Boy does that sound plum, lol.)
Same here . I think they underestimate sims fans and what kind of pc they are willing to buy to play the games they want
I think it's because they don't consider us "real" gamers. They don't imagine us as people buying computers just to be able to play games properly. They imagine us as being stereotypical teen girlies and stereotypical (probably 1950s) house wives and full time hipsters and regular office heros who play occasionally after school, during holidays, when the kids are asleep or when we just want to enjoy a few hours of leisure after work (instead of going to that bar where we use to meet our colleagues). That's why they came up with the Olympus thing in the first place (WOW - now I can meet my colleagues online IN GAME). They thought it was more contemporary for the casual gamer's experience. It's just, for many of us, The Sims is more than that. And we're not those stereotypical, regular people they think we are.
I think they interpreted the critics TS3 received by players wrong. A lot of things that added complexity were criticized. But I don't think they were criticized for reasons of complexity. It seems to me like they interpreted just that though.
And who would allow telemetry in the first place? Aren't those people who only play occasionally? People who are tech-experienced wouldn't really do it, would they? I'd never allow it if given the choice.
So there you go, EA, your telemetry data was probably collected from people who play TS occasionally. Not from those who throw their money at you for everything you put out there. I'd even buy an EP that made it possible for my Sims to FART which is like the most stupid thing I can think of. I'd still be happy to throw my money at you for just that. But not as long as I have a casual gaming experience game. I don't need that. I don't play games for 30 minutes a day after work. I'd be on my smartphone throwing my money at some random farming game app if I wanted to do just that.
..... and sorry for editing all the time, it's a bad habit .......
based on how some peoples defending this game, and say which they not bothered by low graphic quality, by the bugs and by the fact which you can run the game in toasters and which sims games are "for casual players" really indictate which they are not completly wrong, the sims is aimed for that "stereotypical" you are discribing, while not everyone are like that they are aimming for that target.
Well After read the guru statment toward graphics, really my idea about sims 4 just being a poor developed "but "glorified" by the serie and the fact which part of the community really don't care and just want play doll house, become even more strong and more obvious.
The only thing that really ticks me off about all this is they released a game that wasn't really 'The Sims,' and they knew that. Many of us realized this on our own through gameplay that felt off and more like Story Mode. But the real ticker here is they had the gull to say if S4 didn't do well, there wouldn't be an S5?
There is a huge difference between the main game and its offshoots. Those of us who've played both know this. I said from the beginning that S4 felt more like a Story offshoot (even though I liked it at the time).
So, what I don't get is why on earth should this have any impact at all on whether or not there is an S5? Why would they sell us a Story version, relabel it as a main game, and then threaten us to buy it?
EA's logic is if something doesn't sell well it must not be popular, or worth time to develop. I'm sure Maxis has similar views. No where along the road do the people calling the shots look at a problem and blame the people responsible, which in this case would be the management of Maxis. Instead they shift blame on the consumer time and time again.
I believe the only reason those comments were made was because they wanted to cover up the fact they took a game that wasn't good enough to release, polished it up a smidge, and released it anyway. When admitting blame isn't an option, what better way to sell a game than to threaten it be the last if it's not popular enough.
The game was poorly managed back then, and not much has changed now.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
Actually, according to one of the simmers that helps out in the tech thread many players are already experiencing difficulty playing the game or unable to play at all with the minimum stats that their computers have since the addition of the gamepacks and expansions they have added to the game. These are players that apparently have the low end machines, not middle or top of the line, but Sims4 was 'designed' to cater to low end machines and they don't tell people that the game won't play with those stats with EP/GP/etc and even in this day and age so many are not 'puter smart' to know the difference. I know I wasn't and learned enuff playing Sims3 to make me half way knowledgeable about some things, ignorant about others. I won't give her name here without talking with her, but, if you want me to PM her so she can confirm this info to you I will. She was talking about this on another thread within the last few days and that is the only reason I have this info today.
^ This.
I learned that the hard way. After a few patches 4 no longer ran as well for me on a laptop with low specs.
With the EP's, patches etc, the game definitely now requires a PC with quite a bit more power.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
If you know anything about programming and python is rather easy peasey - any one with a stick of knowledge can look at the data files and see for theirselves. Believe me there have been no major shuffles to the game foundation that I can see - just a few minor code changes that amount to a hill of beans. Believe me without some overhauling culling is going to get worse and worse for one thing - if they plan on adding more populated worlds, never mind if pets are counted as sims (I think they won't be). But instead of questioning what people know - and keep in mind you do not need to work for EA or Maxis to read the data files - it is easy enough to look for yourself. Some of us even have programming or other computer experience outside of just playing computer games too. You'd be surprised. But it is also the ones who have pc experience that know better than be fooled by hoopla. I built my first H8 (Heathkit 8) computer from scratch - back in 1984 alongside my husband before there was a windows, and did all the Machine Basic programming in the computer myself. I am not the only simmer who has done something like that or learned programming in it's childhood and tried keeping up with the changes as programming grew.
Perhaps they can fool some people - they can't fool all of us.
You might be satisfied with paying the price for AAA game that were not given an AAA game but many of us are not. As far as I'm concerned for a game to be called a life simulation game it has to include all stages of life like previous sims games.
If this is your opinion/vision about the game, I am fine with that. However to me TS4 already feels like a AAA title. Also I really do not care for toddlers at all, so nope, toddlers are not necessarily an element I consider a "core" feature for "my" (!) life sim. I am sure many people will disagree. No problem.
Funny. That's how I feel about young adults. I'd be perfectly fine if they took "young adult" out from the life stages and never included them again. I don't see the need for them and I'm glad Sims 2 stuck them to university (though the downside is they get a bad memory for not attending university; ugh!). Yet I'm pretty sure if the YA stage was taken out, people would be angry too. Oh, well. That's not my problem. I got mine. Everybody else can kick rocks.
Selfish, isn't it?
You want to play kids and wrinkled sims ?
Che cosa?! No! I meant only the young adult stage, not adulthood entirely!
In my game the young adults are the young attractive ones. When they become adult they get wrinkles. If I really had to choose I'd rather skip A and keep YA. But I don't, I think it's a good thing a 20 year old in the game doesn't look the same as a 50 year old. The leap between a YA and an elder would feel just as odd to me as the leap from baby to ten year old. I don't see a difference there.
the first 10 years of the Sims there was no YA full play life stage. We only got the YA life stage as an equal life stage in Sims 3. In Sims 2 YA's were only allowed in UNI and could not have kids, get married or do anything out side of Uni towns. So we actually only got used to them in Sims 3 and I still never let a Sims 3 YA have kids - they were just glorified teens in my game with the ability to focus on career and dating and just having fun. Maxis made the lifestage to represent 19- 32 year olds, so the Ads were 33 - the early 50's, not the wrinkly ages really, and the fact Sims could have babies up until 6 days before they turned elders - meant none of the Sim Ads were over 54/55 seeing they could have children. Maxis even added fertility treatments in Sims 3 to help those in their late 40's and early 50's to have a baby and did make it harder to impossible for any sims within their last few days of adult hood to conceive. They slack of course in Sims 4 - which is nutty to me, but was much more sensible in Sims 3 where we could also make the epic aging and extend it with slider. We often did request a middle age though, where sims did wrinkle, and had no ability to have kids period, as Sims adults are not supposed to be wrinkly and considered old - so you could say that is another life stage the game - for reality sakes could be served well to have added. We could use more life stages if anything - not less. As the Sims 4 elder stage actually looks like that stage I feel that is missing to represent the still very youthful, but wrinkling 55 - 70 year olds which again also should not have kids - at least the human females anyway. I suppose if one started with Sims 3 - they just assume the YA's were always in the game - when as I said they only were a full fledged sim in Sims 3 - so some of us playing for 15 years - still find it odd to think of them as the main sims stage - which to me always fell on the Sims Adults. Think of it this way a YA of 19 has a baby and 3 days later that baby is 10 and the YA is still 19. No wonder the game has incest - that is saying it is okay for a 9 year old to have a baby apparently. I am not comfortable with that - so Sims 3 and Sims 4 YA did not have babies in my game at least until they were at least half way through the YA age in Sims 3 and near the end of the ya stage in Sims 4. Even then, I only had one baby born in Sims 4 and totally got so freaked out by the 10 year coming out of the bassinet just like it freaked me out in Sims 1 - maybe worse seeing I grew used to having them turn to toddlers for 10 years - that I never tried playing with families since. LOL. It's just unnatural and no amount of reminding me it is just a game will change that. A lot about sims is unnatural - but none are as shocking as that.
I think I understand the confusion now, maybe it's the people who are used to Sims 2 who are having a problem with the concept of YA because they couldn't make the move to Sims 3? Because young adults look completely mature to me in the game and quite capable of raising kids. The adults look over 40 to me and I like it that way in my game. But of course I started playing this game with S3, so I never realized it wasn't like that always.
I prefer the way adulthood is divided in two in Sims 3 and 4. I remember reading a Sims 2 story once, where the father of the main character looked like a boy to me and I never really understood (having never played Sims 2 back then myself and my Sims 2 family now is still young). There just were no real adults (people over 40) in the game. There were teens, college students (called YA) and young adults (called adults).
Adulthood lasts from 20-60. I think that demands two life stages - and we're free what ages we like to put on those life stages - and I consider this an improvement in the franchise if it wasn't like that before. I honestly fail to see why we should need seperate life stages for 12-15 (preteens) and 15-19 (teens) but not for the adults. When I play a 45 year old woman, I want her to look like 45, not 20. I wouldn't mind if they'd give the stages other names if that would help (adult and middle-aged for instance, or Barney and Fred for all I care if it would help getting rid of the association from how things were in Sims 2), but two life stages in adulthood is something I'd most definitely defend under all circumstances. Because it literally adds depth to my game if I'm able to see whether I'm playing with a young man/woman or with a more mature man/woman. I'd miss adults/middle-aged sims just as much as I miss toddlers. And pre-teens in Sims 4 because teens don't look like teens.
Technically a pre-teen means before they turn teen - it is the small stage of life many kids enter early puberty - from age 10-12. Once a child reaches 13 - then they are considered teens. 13-18 is teen. Ya stage nowadays is considered 19- 32, adult is 33-48, middle age 49-63 )this has raised dramatically over the last 30 or so years as it used to be 40-52), golden agers 64 - 74, elders 75 -99, then centennials (Centenarians - depends on where you are from) 100 and up - at least in biology which of course has changed these terms several times over the last 200 years - lol - but also many of those ages are missing in the Sims. Adult in the sims are only considered through the early 50's seeing they make the females no longer able to bear children 6 days before turning elder - so could not be 64. I honestly have no inking of what it is in Sims 4 - as they really didn't say other than there was mention from I think it might have been Ryan or Grant about the child age starts at 10 as an answer to why there was no baby sitter needed in Sims 4 - as many thought the child looked 8 and I guess it was an issue. Of course that is making the infant turn to a pre-teen technically and even worse than it just being a child. If it could be worse anyway - just the fact a 10 year or even an 8 year old comes to existence in 3 days of life is ludicrous... to me anyway.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
I've been noticing huge performance losses after like around fifty hours in one save. Long loading screens, save times and glitchiness. So, this "smooth" running game really only does this on the surface.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
I've been noticing huge performance losses after like around fifty hours in one save. Long loading screens, save times and glitchiness. So, this "smooth" running game really only does this on the surface.
Meh. I had two corrupt saves before I stopped playing. I'm on a high end machine. It's also a tower. I stand by the comment. This game is truly a stable game! Har har
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
Well After read the guru statment toward graphics, really my idea about sims 4 just being a poor developed "but "glorified" by the serie and the fact which part of the community really don't care and just want play doll house, become even more strong and more obvious.
Actually I was the one making the doll house comment. And I DO care about complex game mechanics and graphics.
All I can say is, to those people who argued about how Sims 4 was a complete game and felt like a sequel and Sims 3 was the side game, you can read it and weep! This is fact! They admitted Sims 4 was not intended to be a main game and instead a side game, which only backs up my point that they need to scrap this piece of junk. Why are we putting up with this game that is limited because of their poor decision making? They need to scrap Sims 4 and move on to a proper Sims sequel that we deserve, as loyal fans of the series who have poured thousands of dollars into this franchise we deserve nothing less.
I disagree. As someone who calls himself a TS3 fanboy I still don't want them to scrap anything since I have been enjoying every second I did spend in my TS4 game. Also with Get Together being released soon this game could become my new favourite easily.
All the power to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the foundation the game is built on was never intended for a long line of offline play, or offline play in general. It will collapse without significant adjustments made, and so far they haven't made any big changes to the core of the game.
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
Actually, according to one of the simmers that helps out in the tech thread many players are already experiencing difficulty playing the game or unable to play at all with the minimum stats that their computers have since the addition of the gamepacks and expansions they have added to the game. These are players that apparently have the low end machines, not middle or top of the line, but Sims4 was 'designed' to cater to low end machines and they don't tell people that the game won't play with those stats with EP/GP/etc and even in this day and age so many are not 'puter smart' to know the difference. I know I wasn't and learned enuff playing Sims3 to make me half way knowledgeable about some things, ignorant about others. I won't give her name here without talking with her, but, if you want me to PM her so she can confirm this info to you I will. She was talking about this on another thread within the last few days and that is the only reason I have this info today.
Im here and yes the game does not run well on low end laptops as more got added and even some high end like mine are having issues due to the base game being unstable and coding issues in patches. Im pretty sure I have mentioned the issues in this thread if not @jackjack_k can ask me
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole topic about young adults/adults was introduced to illustrate that toddlers could be just as important to one person as young adults are to someone else. The same people who are complaining about the people complaining about the absence of toddlers would be just as vocal if they removed their preferred age stage from the game.
Also, I did play TS2 as well as TS3 and I never felt that my YAs should be limited in what they could do. Many real life people start their families as YAs, plus we are also free to imagine them as any age range we want. There were no rules in the previous games.
As for adding life stages, I'd like both a pre-teen stage as well as an Adult stage that was split into Adult/ Mature Adult (or whatever they want to name them). To me The Sims has always been about the sims and the simulation of human relationships, so more ages and detailed simulations are better than fewer age stages and fewer simulations. We're missing both in TS4, unfortunately.
True, but I heard this call before: get rid of the YA stage, and I didn't get it. Why get rid of YA and not A then. But now I understand it, what is YA to me is A to others.
That whole conversation is going over my head I must admit. I want toddlers and I want fleshed out babies and cute kids and recognizable teens and adults and middle-aged people and elders in this game. The whole conversation about removing life stages feels like twilight zone to me, in a life simulation game. For me it's like entering a FIFA forum and saying: c'mon guys, let's get rid of that soccer ball.
(edit: I read the last paragraph a bit sloppy when I started answering: we clearly agree )
Well After read the guru statment toward graphics, really my idea about sims 4 just being a poor developed "but "glorified" by the serie and the fact which part of the community really don't care and just want play doll house, become even more strong and more obvious.
Actually I was the one making the doll house comment. And I DO care about complex game mechanics and graphics.
Yeah I know, that part was about what @SimGuruMeatball posted about they made the game around "low ending machines" and don't used the egineer on the video of the OP in first page which ahave "superior graphics" and based also on many comments which i normally see from some simmers which really don't care for quality and will pay for anything was long have a sims and a number stamped on it.
I also care a lot for quality and i believe which many others here also care and want but is sad which maxis prefer to cater the ones which don't want rater than the ones which want cuz is less difficult and expensive and not gonna take "years to make".
You might be satisfied with paying the price for AAA game that were not given an AAA game but many of us are not. As far as I'm concerned for a game to be called a life simulation game it has to include all stages of life like previous sims games.
If this is your opinion/vision about the game, I am fine with that. However to me TS4 already feels like a AAA title. Also I really do not care for toddlers at all, so nope, toddlers are not necessarily an element I consider a "core" feature for "my" (!) life sim. I am sure many people will disagree. No problem.
Funny. That's how I feel about young adults. I'd be perfectly fine if they took "young adult" out from the life stages and never included them again. I don't see the need for them and I'm glad Sims 2 stuck them to university (though the downside is they get a bad memory for not attending university; ugh!). Yet I'm pretty sure if the YA stage was taken out, people would be angry too. Oh, well. That's not my problem. I got mine. Everybody else can kick rocks.
Selfish, isn't it?
You want to play kids and wrinkled sims ?
Che cosa?! No! I meant only the young adult stage, not adulthood entirely!
In my game the young adults are the young attractive ones. When they become adult they get wrinkles. If I really had to choose I'd rather skip A and keep YA. But I don't, I think it's a good thing a 20 year old in the game doesn't look the same as a 50 year old. The leap between a YA and an elder would feel just as odd to me as the leap from baby to ten year old. I don't see a difference there.
the first 10 years of the Sims there was no YA full play life stage. We only got the YA life stage as an equal life stage in Sims 3. In Sims 2 YA's were only allowed in UNI and could not have kids, get married or do anything out side of Uni towns. So we actually only got used to them in Sims 3 and I still never let a Sims 3 YA have kids - they were just glorified teens in my game with the ability to focus on career and dating and just having fun. Maxis made the lifestage to represent 19- 32 year olds, so the Ads were 33 - the early 50's, not the wrinkly ages really, and the fact Sims could have babies up until 6 days before they turned elders - meant none of the Sim Ads were over 54/55 seeing they could have children. Maxis even added fertility treatments in Sims 3 to help those in their late 40's and early 50's to have a baby and did make it harder to impossible for any sims within their last few days of adult hood to conceive. They slack of course in Sims 4 - which is nutty to me, but was much more sensible in Sims 3 where we could also make the epic aging and extend it with slider. We often did request a middle age though, where sims did wrinkle, and had no ability to have kids period, as Sims adults are not supposed to be wrinkly and considered old - so you could say that is another life stage the game - for reality sakes could be served well to have added. We could use more life stages if anything - not less. As the Sims 4 elder stage actually looks like that stage I feel that is missing to represent the still very youthful, but wrinkling 55 - 70 year olds which again also should not have kids - at least the human females anyway. I suppose if one started with Sims 3 - they just assume the YA's were always in the game - when as I said they only were a full fledged sim in Sims 3 - so some of us playing for 15 years - still find it odd to think of them as the main sims stage - which to me always fell on the Sims Adults. Think of it this way a YA of 19 has a baby and 3 days later that baby is 10 and the YA is still 19. No wonder the game has incest - that is saying it is okay for a 9 year old to have a baby apparently. I am not comfortable with that - so Sims 3 and Sims 4 YA did not have babies in my game at least until they were at least half way through the YA age in Sims 3 and near the end of the ya stage in Sims 4. Even then, I only had one baby born in Sims 4 and totally got so freaked out by the 10 year coming out of the bassinet just like it freaked me out in Sims 1 - maybe worse seeing I grew used to having them turn to toddlers for 10 years - that I never tried playing with families since. LOL. It's just unnatural and no amount of reminding me it is just a game will change that. A lot about sims is unnatural - but none are as shocking as that.
I think I understand the confusion now, maybe it's the people who are used to Sims 2 who are having a problem with the concept of YA because they couldn't make the move to Sims 3? Because young adults look completely mature to me in the game and quite capable of raising kids. The adults look over 40 to me and I like it that way in my game. But of course I started playing this game with S3, so I never realized it wasn't like that always.
I prefer the way adulthood is divided in two in Sims 3 and 4. I remember reading a Sims 2 story once, where the father of the main character looked like a boy to me and I never really understood (having never played Sims 2 back then myself and my Sims 2 family now is still young). There just were no real adults (people over 40) in the game. There were teens, college students (called YA) and young adults (called adults).
Adulthood lasts from 20-60. I think that demands two life stages - and we're free what ages we like to put on those life stages - and I consider this an improvement in the franchise if it wasn't like that before. I honestly fail to see why we should need seperate life stages for 12-15 (preteens) and 15-19 (teens) but not for the adults. When I play a 45 year old woman, I want her to look like 45, not 20. I wouldn't mind if they'd give the stages other names if that would help (adult and middle-aged for instance, or Barney and Fred for all I care if it would help getting rid of the association from how things were in Sims 2), but two life stages in adulthood is something I'd most definitely defend under all circumstances. Because it literally adds depth to my game if I'm able to see whether I'm playing with a young man/woman or with a more mature man/woman. I'd miss adults/middle-aged sims just as much as I miss toddlers. And pre-teens in Sims 4 because teens don't look like teens.
Technically a pre-teen means before they turn teen - it is the small stage of life many kids enter early puberty - from age 10-12. Once a child reaches 13 - then they are considered teens. 13-18 is teen. Ya stage nowadays is considered 19- 32, adult is 33-48, middle age 49-63 )this has raised dramatically over the last 30 or so years as it used to be 40-52), golden agers 64 - 74, elders 75 -99, then centennials (Centenarians - depends on where you are from) 100 and up - at least in biology which of course has changed these terms several times over the last 200 years - lol - but also many of those ages are missing in the Sims. Adult in the sims are only considered through the early 50's seeing they make the females no longer able to bear children 6 days before turning elder - so could not be 64. I honestly have no inking of what it is in Sims 4 - as they really didn't say other than there was mention from I think it might have been Ryan or Grant about the child age starts at 10 as an answer to why there was no baby sitter needed in Sims 4 - as many thought the child looked 8 and I guess it was an issue. Of course that is making the infant turn to a pre-teen technically and even worse than it just being a child. If it could be worse anyway - just the fact a 10 year or even an 8 year old comes to existence in 3 days of life is ludicrous... to me anyway.
I'm always kind of struggling how to 'translate' the stages. For me it's:
I know that doesn't make sense when it comes to having kids for women but I decided to dismiss that as a detail
The perfect Sims game for me would be: baby (Freeplay style combined with Sims 2), toddler (doing stuff 5 year olds do), kids, pre-teens, teens, adults, middle-aged (no pregnancies for women anymore half way), elders.
Personally, I don't want any life stage cut. I like the YA and A stages because it gives me more time to play out their lives. I didn't really like how they were tied to Uni in S2. I like the freedom of having them roam wherever they please. I also like the toddler stage. Advancement doesn't really mean removing stages to me. It means adding them or refining them. The problem with S4 is there is too much missing for those lifestages that do exist. In theory, I think it would be nice if there was something more unique about each lifestage that didn't become a limitation of that lifestage like YA in S2. In practice, I don't know if I could trust Maxis to put that theory into good practice.
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
Comments
Also, I did play TS2 as well as TS3 and I never felt that my YAs should be limited in what they could do. Many real life people start their families as YAs, plus we are also free to imagine them as any age range we want. There were no rules in the previous games.
As for adding life stages, I'd like both a pre-teen stage as well as an Adult stage that was split into Adult/ Mature Adult (or whatever they want to name them). To me The Sims has always been about the sims and the simulation of human relationships, so more ages and detailed simulations are better than fewer age stages and fewer simulations. We're missing both in TS4, unfortunately.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
This is why I love my aging mod in TS3. My sims grow over time and become wrinkly and gray.
But I agree with you. I like that the ages are separated because I feel like it is clearly defined. I see YA as being 20-40 and Adults as 41-65. At least in TS3 I did. And for me, I like to give my sims time to work a little at their careers and have fun, then start families and be more mature. If I had to do all that in just one lifestage, well, I don't think it would be possible. I know in TS2 I hardly ever reached the top of a career unless that was the only focus of the sim. You had to make a choice on where you wanted to focus all your time and energy. Plus, I prefer to have more time with my sims in general. I grow quite attached to them.
In TS4, the separation of ages is not that great. I can't tell a teen from an adult. Sometimes I can't tell an adult from an elder. It's just crazy how this game is. Plus, there is nothing that defines the different ages. I think that is why some think they should get rid of YA. But in actuality, YA and A are the same. There is no difference besides a couple of lines of code that says one is YA and the other is A. That's it. So it's not like it took any time for them to be added in. Actually, they probably included it as a separate lifestage just to bulk up the lifestages. I mean, toddlers are already missing, could you imagine the backlash if 2 lifestages were missing?
Obviously the Sims and objects are the same. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying the world "Windunburg" is not the same world that was scrapped in the base game. The base game was a small village with Tudor houses, which I think the devs realized having a "small town" with heaps of Sims walking around from other worlds won't make much sense.
As this image shows, it was more of a quiet country town. Much different to Windunburg, which has been described as a busy town.
They scrapped the world, and kept the Tudor theme. Windunburg is now a busy town, with two commercial areas, and busy residential areas (as shown above) and is also coastal, something the original game was not.
And I dare you (double dare) to quote me if I am wrong, but Windunburg wont have that clock in the game. Because we have already seen the city centre, and it doesnt have the clock.
Literally the only thing that's the same is the "Tudor" theme. Even the original Tudor houses from the scrapped base game world, look different to the ones we get with the new EP.
Insta: https://instagram.com/jkarajs?igshid=oef2ymrand3g
Actually, you don't know that. At all.
The fact is, the patches for The Sims 4 are quite large. Anywhere between 300MB - 1GB each. And yet Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day were only 600MB each.
What makes those patches so large? You will probably find things have been going on in the background that you aren't aware of.
You will most likely find they are replacing files and coding in each patch to change the game behind the scenes.
So far, the game wasn't even fazed with the 4 Stuff Packs, 2 Gamepacks and Expansion we have now. It runs just as smooth as the base game. However, as players like Deligracy have found out, the Sims 3 starts to lose performance after two Expansions are installed.
So it seems to be holding up well so far
Insta: https://instagram.com/jkarajs?igshid=oef2ymrand3g
Preteens don't always look like teens either. It's kind of stupid to introduce preteens and make them look like teens just because teens suck in TS4. Sure, some preteens do already look like teens. But remembering myself and my friends, I kind of looked like a slightly taller child at the age of 10-13.
We need lifestages 0-10 months (baby) 11 months -3 years (Toddler), 3-6 (Preschool), 10-13 (Preteen), 14-17 (teen), 18-21 (lol - College teen? I don't know what to call it, but I don't know what to call that adult looking teen life stage in TS4 either). 21-33 (YA), 33-49 (middle-aged Adult), 50-59 (older adult? I don't know what to call it) and elder of course.
Or we need gradual aging.
Actually, according to one of the simmers that helps out in the tech thread many players are already experiencing difficulty playing the game or unable to play at all with the minimum stats that their computers have since the addition of the gamepacks and expansions they have added to the game. These are players that apparently have the low end machines, not middle or top of the line, but Sims4 was 'designed' to cater to low end machines and they don't tell people that the game won't play with those stats with EP/GP/etc and even in this day and age so many are not 'puter smart' to know the difference. I know I wasn't and learned enuff playing Sims3 to make me half way knowledgeable about some things, ignorant about others. I won't give her name here without talking with her, but, if you want me to PM her so she can confirm this info to you I will. She was talking about this on another thread within the last few days and that is the only reason I have this info today.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
That's because this game has no data running in the background. TS3 had to keep track of the lives of every sim, every object in use, every game mechanic at play, every detail of the world at the same time. It was a data hog, but the game worked, was enjoyable, and had lots to do. TS4 has none of that. It doesn't keep track of anything other than your active family (or whoever is with you because outside of the home they dn't even keep track of what your active family is doing) and social situations happening nearby. That a drop in the bucket compared to what TS3 was doing. So of course TS4 is able to run better with these additions. It's still not doing anything and what they have added has been designed for one sim to do, not groups, not large amounts of sim. Not anything special.
--ETA--
Plus this games specs are low. Anyone with a decent computer can play it. It can be played on a tablet with minor hiccups. So...
The size of the patches is completely irrelevant, and honestly so is a comparison to The Sims 3. The Sims 4 is still a very lackluster title, and it has not changed very much since launch.
One player cannot determine when a game loses performance, so my apologies to Deligracy, but he/she cannot come to a conclusion on their own, and neither can you in the case of The Sims 4.
On the topic of how smoothly the game runs; are you really surprised? Take The Sims 3, remove the open word, create a style, any and all intelligent simulation, and limit the game to 20 sims at a time (all close in proximity) and I'm sure it would run like a charm too. The Sims 3 handled a lot of data, The Sims 4 doesn't handle a lot of data. In fact The Sims 4 deletes data constantly. So once again I ask, are you seriously surprised that the game runs smoother?
You don't even need to take out the open world. Just make the world as small as the ones in TS4 (i.e., limited to 25 lots) and you'll see an increase in performance.
"We've been attributing the state of The Sims 4 to greed but I think it's time to give sheer incompetence another look."
-Honeywell
There is a huge difference between the main game and its offshoots. Those of us who've played both know this. I said from the beginning that S4 felt more like a Story offshoot (even though I liked it at the time).
So, what I don't get is why on earth should this have any impact at all on whether or not there is an S5? Why would they sell us a Story version, relabel it as a main game, and then threaten us to buy it?
based on how some peoples defending this game, and say which they not bothered by low graphic quality, by the bugs and by the fact which you can run the game in toasters and which sims games are "for casual players" really indictate which they are not completly wrong, the sims is aimed for that "stereotypical" you are discribing, while not everyone are like that they are aimming for that target.
Well After read the guru statment toward graphics, really my idea about sims 4 just being a poor developed "but "glorified" by the serie and the fact which part of the community really don't care and just want play doll house, become even more strong and more obvious.
EA's logic is if something doesn't sell well it must not be popular, or worth time to develop. I'm sure Maxis has similar views. No where along the road do the people calling the shots look at a problem and blame the people responsible, which in this case would be the management of Maxis. Instead they shift blame on the consumer time and time again.
I believe the only reason those comments were made was because they wanted to cover up the fact they took a game that wasn't good enough to release, polished it up a smidge, and released it anyway. When admitting blame isn't an option, what better way to sell a game than to threaten it be the last if it's not popular enough.
The game was poorly managed back then, and not much has changed now.
^ This.
I learned that the hard way. After a few patches 4 no longer ran as well for me on a laptop with low specs.
With the EP's, patches etc, the game definitely now requires a PC with quite a bit more power.
If you know anything about programming and python is rather easy peasey - any one with a stick of knowledge can look at the data files and see for theirselves. Believe me there have been no major shuffles to the game foundation that I can see - just a few minor code changes that amount to a hill of beans. Believe me without some overhauling culling is going to get worse and worse for one thing - if they plan on adding more populated worlds, never mind if pets are counted as sims (I think they won't be). But instead of questioning what people know - and keep in mind you do not need to work for EA or Maxis to read the data files - it is easy enough to look for yourself. Some of us even have programming or other computer experience outside of just playing computer games too. You'd be surprised. But it is also the ones who have pc experience that know better than be fooled by hoopla. I built my first H8 (Heathkit 8) computer from scratch - back in 1984 alongside my husband before there was a windows, and did all the Machine Basic programming in the computer myself. I am not the only simmer who has done something like that or learned programming in it's childhood and tried keeping up with the changes as programming grew.
Perhaps they can fool some people - they can't fool all of us.
(here want to read about Heathkits - enjoy - http://vintagecomputer.com/heathkit-h8.html
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Technically a pre-teen means before they turn teen - it is the small stage of life many kids enter early puberty - from age 10-12. Once a child reaches 13 - then they are considered teens. 13-18 is teen. Ya stage nowadays is considered 19- 32, adult is 33-48, middle age 49-63 )this has raised dramatically over the last 30 or so years as it used to be 40-52), golden agers 64 - 74, elders 75 -99, then centennials (Centenarians - depends on where you are from) 100 and up - at least in biology which of course has changed these terms several times over the last 200 years - lol - but also many of those ages are missing in the Sims. Adult in the sims are only considered through the early 50's seeing they make the females no longer able to bear children 6 days before turning elder - so could not be 64. I honestly have no inking of what it is in Sims 4 - as they really didn't say other than there was mention from I think it might have been Ryan or Grant about the child age starts at 10 as an answer to why there was no baby sitter needed in Sims 4 - as many thought the child looked 8 and I guess it was an issue. Of course that is making the infant turn to a pre-teen technically and even worse than it just being a child. If it could be worse anyway - just the fact a 10 year or even an 8 year old comes to existence in 3 days of life is ludicrous... to me anyway.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
https://www.reddit.com/r/thesims/comments/354z58/there_was_a_third_world_in_the_sims_4_once/
I've been noticing huge performance losses after like around fifty hours in one save. Long loading screens, save times and glitchiness. So, this "smooth" running game really only does this on the surface.
The Essence
How To Lose Your Ugliness in Ten Generations
Meh. I had two corrupt saves before I stopped playing. I'm on a high end machine. It's also a tower. I stand by the comment. This game is truly a stable game! Har har
Actually I was the one making the doll house comment. And I DO care about complex game mechanics and graphics.
Im here and yes the game does not run well on low end laptops as more got added and even some high end like mine are having issues due to the base game being unstable and coding issues in patches. Im pretty sure I have mentioned the issues in this thread if not @jackjack_k can ask me
That whole conversation is going over my head I must admit. I want toddlers and I want fleshed out babies and cute kids and recognizable teens and adults and middle-aged people and elders in this game. The whole conversation about removing life stages feels like twilight zone to me, in a life simulation game. For me it's like entering a FIFA forum and saying: c'mon guys, let's get rid of that soccer ball.
(edit: I read the last paragraph a bit sloppy when I started answering: we clearly agree
Yeah I know, that part was about what @SimGuruMeatball posted about they made the game around "low ending machines" and don't used the egineer on the video of the OP in first page which ahave "superior graphics" and based also on many comments which i normally see from some simmers which really don't care for quality and will pay for anything was long have a sims and a number stamped on it.
I also care a lot for quality and i believe which many others here also care and want but is sad which maxis prefer to cater the ones which don't want rater than the ones which want cuz is less difficult and expensive and not gonna take "years to make".
baby: 0-2
toddler: 3-5
kid: 6-11
teen: 12-19
YA: 20-40
A: 41-60
E: 61 up
I know that doesn't make sense when it comes to having kids for women but I decided to dismiss that as a detail
The perfect Sims game for me would be: baby (Freeplay style combined with Sims 2), toddler (doing stuff 5 year olds do), kids, pre-teens, teens, adults, middle-aged (no pregnancies for women anymore half way), elders.