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we're 2 years in with people begging for them and the only responses so far where "we're going to talk about it" and "complaints have an expiry date" and you still hope for them to come?
Though talking about weird prioritization, why they prioritized the tragic clown over let's say a firefighter I really don't get O_o
Yes, I think they'll come. And I think they are going to be awesome !
well we'll see at the end of this game's lifespan, but after developers getting angry with people asking for them repeatedly and saying "complaints have an expiration date" I would really stop hoping.
You both have valid points which is what makes arriving at a definitive conclusion difficult with this iteration.
The EPs do seem/are light compared to the past and management decisions at EA/Maxis have led to packs that stopped short of ideal for a large number of people- it's true. It's also true that EPs have not increased in price, nor really have GPs which I just consider the old Sims 3 Store Venues. Without a price increase there are going to be production decreases. While I don't think EA is in any danger (AS IN ZERO) of going out of business I do think they are not going to sacrifice profit percentage from one iteration to the next. Are people prepared to pay fifty- sixty dollars for an EP/ thirty dollars for a GP? If so, I think we would receive a better product.
We have received a lot of updates- some free/ some paid for when the base game was purchased in a grossly unfinished state- let's not forget that. Pools/Ghosts/Basements and much else should have been there in September 2014 AND yes, the Gender Neutral patch was released WHEN IT WAS for publicity. It was created simply because I think many people had asked for the option but I think it was released before it was truly ready due to the news surrounding the issue and to play off that.
And on and on with the other points you two (EDIT: AND EVERYONE ELSE, myself included) have been debating...
EA really dropped the ball when developing Olympus and they been fumbling with it ever since trying to get it into play. The truth is it's both good and bad. The truth is their base is so wide and diverse that it's near impossible at this point to satisfy everyone and I think in their attempts to try and give everyone a "little" something they are doing their base and themselves a disservice. Sure, there's at least a little something for everyone in CL and a lot of people will buy it for the small pieces they like BUT then they'll be unhappy in a month when the newness wears off just like we've seen this entire two years (AND NO I don't mean absolutely everybody- if you don't feel this way then I don't mean you). So, what are EA/Maxis to do? Raise prices? Target Expansion Packs clearly and exclusively on single themes that a sizable percentage of their base won't want and most likely won't buy? Increase production at risk of saturation. I don't know. The game is okay- it doesn't have to be great to be playable, it doesn't have to be epic to sell and both sides of this issue are correct in how they feel.
I think toddlers are mentionned often enough to not fall out of the radar. But indeed, we'll see at the end of this game's lifespan.
Positive thinking!
They said it would not be forced on players, and while it may seem nitpicky, there are a number of clothing items or hairstyles that are treated as "gender neutral" that were designed for one gender in particular, and they look AWFUL on the opposing gender. Graphical glitches where hair has bald spots, pants that look comically oversized on women, weird inconsistencies with textures, etc. Those really bother me just because they take me out of the game and remind me it's a game, and yes, these gender neutral clothing sets and hairstyles DO pop up on NPCs.
I feel like that update was made more with the intention of garnering free press (transgender issues being very topical when that was released) and less so because it was wildly demanded. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure some people loved it because it was something for them, but for me...?
I look at that update and I think "why didn't you include this on release?" If it had been done on release, then I wouldn't have issue with it because we wouldn't have these subpar clothing texture issues and they'd still get their free press and certains fans would still be super happy. They missed that train though and did a rather sub-par patch-in that's resulted in myself and a friend I talk to both having a couple townies that annoy us because they either have clothes with weird textures or in her case, she has a dude walking around town in high heels (guess one of the female shoes slipped through...?).
But all I can think is....both transgender options and toddlers were not included on release, both could be patched in at a later date. Did they bother patching in toddlers, a feature that 80% of their customers have probably requested and a feature that has existed since Sims 2...? No, they patched in transgender sims, a feature that quite frankly, a rather small minority benefits from, and again it feels like had transgender issues not been a hot button issue at the time, it would not have happened. I feel free press drove the decision to include a feature, and again, THAT alarms me. I would much rather have development be based around a process of "ok so fans want this, this is doable and within budget, so let's do it" rather than "ok so this will get us free press and up sales, let's do this."
Granted, I have no evidence that this was the motivation and I do wanna be clear about that in fairness. However, I also do think it's important I voice that EA employees have repeatedly told us "we're listening," yet here we are on expansion pack 3 and I'm simply not seeing most of the common requests by users being fulfilled. I see plenty of requests to flesh out family play, plenty of requests to include toddlers and plenty of requests for Pets and Seasons. While I can understand fully if Pets and Seasons are simply planned as later expansions (rumors and surveys they've done would suggest Pets could very well be EP4 or 5) and they don't want to bump those up in their schedule despite hearing requests, I do have to question if toddlers for example is repeatedly glossed over/delayed/ignored since it would likely be a free feature in a patch, not an EP selling point. I just find it rather odd how different the common requests look from the actual releases we've received, with Kids stuff feeling like the only attempt to address such concerns at all. (and I wanna clarify, I'm not even a family fan, I just think the path to a worthwhile gaming experience involves a company catering to the majority) Given that, yes, I am absolutely gonna to be skeptical of intentions behind certain releases.
"This is a new game, not a recoding of old one". Funny, as the least thing I expect is to have something from the game if not features returning from previous, but at least get something actually NEW that gives it the applause for being The Sims 4 and not what it is today - a completely new game/nerf spin-off or whatever it is. Emotions mechanic to me personally doesn't impact me on that much for having any interest in it (unlike how i am friends with cas and build mode)-- it is nothing more than just a label for my sims and animations that are changed upon the label my sim has.
bolded part: Absolutely true. They released that patch right before June, which is Pride Month in the US.
I have zero issues with the options being there, but the gender variations are incredibly bad. If they were implementing these as a sincere gesture, they would have kept them in development until the meshes + textures were fixed. Last I checked, all male bottoms have a major 'cave in' in the pelvis on female sims. How did that get past their QA team?
Underwhelmed is a good description. Here is one thing I know would make me annoyed if I sent my Sim out to buy from one of those food vendors and they suddenly left and packed up their kiosk. I saw that in one of the trailers and I was like oh, heck, no. I'm not liking things popping in and out just as your Sim was ready to eat. Like some sort of 'magic' here now, gone a second later, though they were queued up to eat.
Also, it's objective to say that features have been removed from TS4, but we're all different in our priorities. A lot of the missing features were never particularly important to me, and I still play TS3 so I can always get my fix from that game if I want to (though as things currently stand I've played TS4 more than TS3 on my new laptop).
Sounds a lot like you're suggesting those "others" should learn to wait their turn so you can have your way as part of the dominant group. You include a statistic to suggest a minority group shouldn't receive representation so that more resources can be devoted to the majority (you receive bonus points for making that statistic up out of thin air after already being asked not to do that). You probably don't realize how utterly entitled this sounds, but I suggest you check out the response of some of the LGBTQ players for a different perspective on what this patch meant. As for myself I appreciate that I have a trans sim now and that many of the rest of my sims, can now look and dress closer to how I imagined them.
are you suggesting that pleasing 4% of players earlier should be more of a priority than for example pleasing 40% of the players?
I don't think anyone is saying that. But the focus of this took six months when people were actually demanding or requesting and begging for other stuff (mainly toddlers and to overhaul the emotions/trait system). The focus is what is important to everyone not a majority issue or a minority issue. I mean sometime we expect pets or seasons don't we? But if they don't put the focus toward those things, and say spend six months on something else no one was really writing petitions over even before game came out, you have to wonder if it wasn't just a press op.
The players are vocal on all sides of anything but you have to wonder why they didn't set the game up from the beginning (if they talked about it before the game was even released) to have the ability to do this smoothly and shortly without all the glitches if it wasn't a photo op. ETA: In other words I feel if this was really important it would have been designed from the beginning for meshes to work smoothly from the start, and not thrown together and a mess and took six months, just because it gave the game a shot in the arm.
No I'm suggesting that after waiting decades for a major developer to acknowledge that they exist and provide content that reflects their lives, those of us that have the privilege of having almost every game of the art form directed at our lives our quite well represented. Almost everything in the gaming universe is targeted to my lifestyle and so I don't feel entitled to yet more resources.
The trouble with this analysis is that looking at every single decision as how the majority would benefit, only the largest group ever wins. But if I apply that logic to every decision, I reach a decidedly unfair final outcome on the global time-amortized balance sheet (since you seem to be arguing from the standpoint of maximizing communal good, which isn't necessarily how I view this, but your argument here isn't correct even when taking that view).
on the other hand you have limited resources and you choose to use that on a half made update simply to profit off publicity, while censoring your own forums, instead of pleasing a very vocal majority (and some minorities would have 100% fallen into it) and allowing customer dissatisfaction to go on.
As for content reflecting lives - plenty of indie developers got penalized and thrown dirt on for representing transitioning people, because they did so without the approval and the hire of an official commission (AKA where gender studies graduates get employed), the politics of the issue are very sensitive, partly corrupt and not as simple as they appear to be. As for representing gays - every major game with dating options will essentially have same gender dating options.
culling is not a feature though, it's just something that happens under the hood that developers use to make the game run better.
Also I agree with the others, the visual glitches with the implementation of the gender patch do need to be fixed still.
Anyway, EP related, I hope they bring back the potions for the matchmakers again. Those were nice. Some new ones would be nice for that NPC too. I remember suggesting that NPC before, so kind of cool to see it implemented.
Fun fact: I took part in a thread on the Sims 3 forums back in the day that requested for the disabled community to be recognized by implementing things such as wheelchairs and prosthetics. The community more or less told the thread creator to screw off because "who would want to play as a disabled person" or "you should be grateful Sims 3 gives you a chance to have legs." Couple of us defended him, and yeah...Understandably things got heated in that thread, and when it was done and the thread locked, the few of us that supported the idea got hit with bans. I guess the mods didn't like that it turned into a scuffle and decided to slap the smaller group with temp bans to resolve it.
Now speaking today, I STILL am not represented. However, I can fully understand it. Aside from, say, prosthetic skins that are purely consmetic and do nothing to change a sim's movements, creating animations for wheelchairs or dwarf Sims or the like could eat a lot of development time. I get it: at the end of the day, it's not worth it to focus time on something just to appease a minority group when they could focus on gameplay features.
See how I don't use my minority stance to argue you all owe me something and anyone that argues against a disabled update is an insensitive jerk? Yeah, more of that please. Because at the end of the day, disabled sims or transgender sims are not gameplay. And yes, updates should cater to the majority, because that's how you please the majority of customers. If you're a minority group...? Sad day for you. Just because that sucks doesn't mean you can't be rational and understanding about it.