Didn't say I wanted exactly TS2-style aging, but I said the TS2 creators more or less understood which changes needed to be done to the aging (from TS1), and this can be developed much further (something TS3 and TS4 didn't do and/or did horribly bad). Also don't come and say the default story progression was handled well in TS3, because you have to mod the cr*p out of the default settings to make it be even remotely logical or useful, or just turn it off completely when you realize sims' school friends are three times as old as them a sim week later and die of old age a couple days later, or some other weird thing - the frequent popups almost drove me insane until I figured how to turn off story progression.

Basically, I want something that doesn't need a complete overhaul before you can even turn it on. Preferably with an off button included, just to be on the safe side. Adding in a more logical story progression where things don't get out of control may be useful for those who like some surprises (maybe a range of auto settings from small changes like aging up when same-age sims age up in the current household, to big changes like weddings, babies, etc.?).

Personally I'm not a big fan of story progression, so I wouldn't be interested in it without the option of an off-button. TS2 handles this so that you can do rotations on the households to keep them up to date with each other - and while I see how this can be annoying for some people, I prefer it that way (I'm a huge control freak in my game, and nobody is allowed to age or do anything remotely story-progressing unless I say so, unless I on a whim turn on free will, of course).

For aging I'd like a more gradual process - it's alright with the age stages and birthdays (gradual aging/height change would probably be a pain to animate) but I'd like some more ages in between (and no, we don't need more adult/elder ages, there's enough of those already - and if you need more they can be easily fixed with salt'n'pepper hairs or wrinkles - as long as they actually include a proper elder stage and not just a tweaked adult stage like TS4 did). For storytellers or just people who are tired of the huge age gaps it would be nice with more gradual aging for the younger ones, because aging from toddler to child or child to teen is too big an age gap. I'd also like a lot more to do for the younger ages. Proper skilling, (like TS2 where they can actually start skilling at younger ages - not just pretend-skills that barely count later), more activities, being able to help out more in the home, more clothing options for all the ages, and more importantly having babies that actually look like their parents and having proper genetics, not just with generic faces/bodies. Can't be that hard (TS2 was again on a better track than TS3/TS4, since the babies actually look like mini sims and have the same skintone and face texture as the older ages, not looking like some creepy almost-human changelings with non-matching skins or genetics until they grow up).

Gradual aging as in cosmetic change where they 'stretch' so to speak? Personally, I don't feel the need and think it would be wise idea to waste coding on redundant life stages that are weird duplicates or hybrids of what it's in-between life stage (looking at you people that demand preteens >.>). Heck, I feel much the same about the introduction of the young adult in TS3 as free age group was anyway 'important', because they're almost hardly indistinguishable and don't impact much of the gameplay from the transition sims go through from younger to the older one. I do agree and wouldn't mind If some facial or body appearance features a sim gone through as time passes, but a life stage for the purpose to fill that long gap could have just extended the life span, because that's essentially what young adults to older go through.

Options. That's what EA had to do. They never realised they lost a big portion of their players with Sims 3 just because they completely changed the playstyle... with that changing mostly the whole game. Ofc without mods, TS3 would be a broken and mostly unplayable game. Most of the people I know that play the game (includig myself) have those mods.

And yes EA never did anything about ts3's issues, going their merry way to publish more and more expansions, stuff packs and store content!

If a mod could make a perfectly viable, enjoyable story progression gameplay mechanic AND aloow you completely natural CHOICE of playing rotationaly, then WHY coludn't EA? Time restrains? NO, I'd rather say other occupations, like shilling out useless content so that they can get more money for less work.

That's what the middle of TS3 era represented (the end was actually more uplifting), and that's almost what whole TS4 era represents. Uninterest, lack of passion and greed for money. Shortly said... EA.

The arrival of new people does not mean that the game will be deprived of the warmth and love that the developers of the Sims 2 have invested to their game. After all, during the development of the game many new devs came.

I don't mind age stages as opposed to gradual height/age changes, but as a storyteller (mainly in TS2 where the only body height adjuster kinda messes with the skeleton too much) it's really hard to make a story about kids growing up when they go from 2-3 to 6-10 to 14-17. I've always missed that pre-teen stage, and perhaps one more, just to make it easier. The jump from child to teen bothers me the most.

There are tools for height and body adjustment in TS3 and TS4, and perhaps it's easier to tinker with "gradual" aging there, but there are other things I don't like in those games, and there are reasons why I've stuck with TS2 (for me, TS3 and TS4 have always been reeeeally slow even with little CC, and TS4 is even worse than TS3 for some reason - so modding them as much as I'd need to get the result I want is too much work and basically like starting from scratch). Besides, even if you tinker with their height and bodyshape, they still don't look quite right.

TS4 have the worst ever handling of age stages despite being the most recent game (not counting TS1, because generations wasn't a big deal there). The infant stage while looking better bothers me almost more than in TS3 because they're pretty much useless, toddlers are better than in TS3 (but were extremely annoying to wait for), children are perhaps a tiny bit better than in TS3 but still meh, teenagers are awfully handled adults, adults are OK, elders are also awfully handled adults.

IF they ever make a TS5 I also hope they handle animations better. Despite options, there's only one barely passable walking style in TS4 (the normal one), and it seems they only got lazier with the animations as time went on. Either they started overdoing everything, figured teleportation was easier for nearly everything, or simply cut it out completely (for instance going from working in-and-out-of car animations in TS2, to teleporting into the car in TS3, to no cars in TS4 - that's just lazy!). In TS2 I love how I don't need poseboxes for every single thing I want my sims to do, because there are a lot of nice and useful animations.

I also miss some personality in the later gmes. Despite all the emoooootions in TS4, I get the feeling the TS2 sims have a bit more personality and life in them. I've got one sim who whips out a Rubics cube every time he's bored, and his wife tends to favor reading while walking. Some sims do the "breathing in, enjoying life" animation all the time, or any of the other idles. They also react to other sims in various ways. This is with free will off, mind. It's almost like they enjoy life despite having no free will, and I think it makes them seem more alive. Some may find the idles annoying, but I (most of the time, but not while they're suppposed to do someting else) find it oddly charming. In TS3 and TS4 if free will is off, the sims... do nothing. They stand still not even looking bored or content. Like robots. Sure, TS2 has some issues with free will on - but TS3 and TS4 in some ways feel much worse on that level, despite supposedly having better AIs (which they don't). I had one TS3 sim who managed to kill himself on the first day in a new house despite trying hard to keep him alive (in an unaware moment I think he caught fire). And my TS4 sims constantly come back stark naked from rocket missions and other things that require clothing changes. At least my TS2 sims are smart enough to realize they're naked...

So I hope they chuck out the nitwits from the current team (keeping only the highly skilled people), get in some fresh blood from people who genuinely love the game and knows how to make it good, lock the door so no EA bosses can bother them with time limits or anything else that would end up in a bad game (like making them do a barely passable basegame with minimal content so they can chuck out a ton of EPs/GPs/SPs/pay-DLC/etc.), and just make an awesome game with all the tools players would want, using thoroughly tested smart scripting that actually does what it's supposed to so there's a minimal amount of bugs and annoyances that needs sorting out by the players, a graphic style that we can all more or less agree looks good, well done animations without bad shortcuts, perhaps making the game more mod friendly (maybe some creation tools?), do some new and exciting things that doesn't turn out to be the same thing over and over (like GTW jobs, or having to collect items to access fun things), fix the AI so sims manage to be more or less self-sufficient with free will on so they don't wander around naked (or invisible - I've had that happen multiple times), and so forth. You know - making a good, perhaps even great game that isn't just a cash-grab.

I'm not a huge fan of the gradual aging idea (mostly because I like to age my sims up when I decide to age them up, not when the game decides to). But I do think it's about time we had some sort of buffer between the child and teen stage. Especially if they're insistent on making teens indistinguishable from adults.

I miss the simple and cute interactions from Sims 2 like throwing food across the table or a child snuggling up on their parents laps that I somehow can't get them able to do again probably because my game's glitched or some mod or something. I don't think it really take that much resources to implement them in the new Sims games.

Babies been useless since forever. Maybe it's the wrong word you're using, but the interactions the babies had in TS2 are basically different from each other only in the relationship point value and animation.


If they insistent of making teens boring as there are, what makes you think they wouldn't bother simply duplicate a Teen's code and lazily put it in without tweaks to that new shorter life stage? Unlike toddlers, though you might argue with the help of, that buffer life stage all would do is essentially lengthen the lifespan of a kid that is in an awkward time period of becoming a teen but with limited intention. Even If some new interactions were implemented exclusively to that life stage, it would feel like it would need to belong to a teen life stage as well, since that's the suggestion I seen so far regarding the new life stage.

Though what I would propose, If they consider to put their focus and resorts to fleshing out the growing/aging concept of sims to a higher level, I think as the sim ages (where the life span bar/meter of that particular life stage is slowly filling up) there should be some sort of progression where new interactions gradually open up and get unlock that proceed within their start of the next age group, though that would fill inconsistent/realistic manner so teens don't end up having the ability to learn-to-drive-a-car (If that skill/feature were introduced) in their second day of starting their life as a teen). As the child is slowly growing, (s)he should gradually start moving onto other games and start losing interest (gradually) like for example playing with toys.I would add more examples If I could think of any valid examples, so i guess it again as somebody mention comes down If developers have a specialty in psychology to understand and grasp how human behavior works as they biologically start growing.

Oh and since certain simmers have a style of playing with aging off, this should be an option. Better yet, more customize options provided in the aging setting panel/section, the merrier the game is and 'accessible' to anyone.

It was a completely new game. They went with an entirely new engine that isn’t compatible with anything built for Sims 3. That doesn’t make it a spin-off.

EA could have rebranded with Sims 4 opting for a completely different naming scheme if they were trying to make a non-core series game or if they were trying to refresh The Sims brand. They opted to title the game The Sims 4, which says by all accounts EA sees it as a sequel to Sims 3; regardless of how poorly it stacks up to it’s former.

New engine does not equal "new series."

TS4 is a sequel. It is in the name and because of that the most obvious expectation from the community. The whole 'it must be seen as a new game' is just another excuse about TS4 lacking features because they wasted years of development when they were planning to turn TS4 into an online game. So when they decided to scrap that online idea, they simply had no time to make TS4 truly a sequel in terms of features.

As usual it is a poor attempt at saving face in a manner that most simmers do not believe (I hope so anyway). Everyone forgot how they originally acted about toddlers? 1. What are they even about, those toddlers? 2. It is too difficult. 3.Suddenly they were possible, simply because in the meantime they were developing them. And ofc with releasing them, they make it a proof that their team listens to the community. Tbh I never doubted that they listened. Just that we were not taken seriously.
The toddlers were not in the basegame, because they never got time for that (and maybe even had a lack of people after scrapping the online idea). Not because they would not like to add them.

But they are not honest about this. It is all smoke and mirrors, excuses and backtracking with their community managers. I don't understand why anyone still takes their communication about TS4 serious. They are so used to simply contradict themselves or even outright lie and expect us to have an attention span of a goldfish so that we don't notice.

Remember that someone once said that if Sims 4 will buy badly, then Sims 5 will not be? Developers Sims 2 also said so (most likely joked) about Sims 3:


As we see, everything is possible.

https://web.archive.org/web/2007122...at_11_06_03.php



Continuing the theme of future games...


https://web.archive.org/web/2008052...at_01_22_04.php

How would we force them? I thought they made up their mind. Well whatever, we could try continue nagging to them.

They are very kind to allow us to have a thread on their General Discussion section where we've been talking about life simulators and how groovy it would be if Paradox released one. (It's over 25 pages now.) I think we've made it clear that if they need ideas or beta testers for one, they know where to find us.

Yes, anytime you move to the next numbered installment it’s a sequel. “The Sims 4” would still be the sequel to The Sims 3 if it was the online game.

Paradox/Colosar Order will do the life-sim only if they themselves want to do it. Fans on paradoxplaza are still asking to make a sequel of some kind of game. The developers do not do it.

Certainly they will only make one if they feel like it. What we can do, however, is communicate to them that there's a market out there of players dissatisfied with the direction the Sims has taken.

ETA: The Paradox forum regulars (including yours truly) are begging desperately for Victoria 3. But in part that's because we're pretty sure they're working on it already.

I suspect we will not see a Sims 5 until they are ready to introduce virtual reality into their games. A VR version of Sims (whether they call it Sims 5 or not) would require a reworking of the entire game engine. Recently, a Simguru reported they still have at least 3 years more content planned for Sims 4. And this is 2018 already. If they start working on Sims 5 now, they will have to hire more people just to work on Sims 5.

SimGurus constantly blame the budget for the shortfalls of the game. I think they are not completely wrong on this. The more quality time spent on developing the game, the better the game becomes. Some development of the game can be outsourced, but this too costs money.
For one thing, I suspect the developers are working less overtime in Sims 4 than they did in previous versions of Sim games for numerous reasons: paid sick leave laws for one thing (California was an early adopter of paid sick leave) - if you work too many hours at a time, eventually you are likely to get sick. If you get paid sick leave allowances, you don't come in to work so often when you are sick, so companies don't overwork their employees so much as they maybe used to. Other factors that are likely to be affecting EA's budget (at least in California areas) - high rental prices. I learned when visiting the San Francisco area that the Bay Area has rent ceilings. This tends to create housing shortages, which in turn creates high rents, which creates high cost of living, which means wages have to be higher to keep pace.
Finally, I think in the area where Maxis game development studio for The Sims is, there is a shortage of people with certain talents. This means they have to pay higher wages and benefits just to attract and keep talented people. Some of these talents might be graphics development, CGI/3D artists, and programming skills including a college degree, as well as the ability to work as a team. So if you are over 18, and you have the skills listed on the EA career website, which usually includes a degree in computer science/programming, you might consider applying for open positions. If you are under 18 and you have interests in computer science and graphic arts, maybe consider going to a college in the area to see if you can get an internship while you are there.

I'll tell you who would make my kind of sims game - Two Point Studios. Finally I am playing a game that (in spite of the cartoon illnesses) you can manage with common sense and knowledge of life. That is to say the behaviour system is modelled quite closely on how real people make decisions. I don't even mind if they keep the same dozy looking mannekins, as long as they model the behaviour as logically.

I haven't played Two Point Hospital, but I've followed it, and what I have seen...yep. I wouldn't even mind if the Sims look cartoony like the hospital characters (maybe a little bit better though) as long as it would be a good, flexible game.

Still some flaws in the AI system and some missing UI panels for patient management, but I'm actually surprised how smooth the decorating system is, and how polished the game feels overall.

Why VR for The Sims? Why would anyone want Virtual Reality for a life simulator? I could understand for mystery or horror games...
But if they do insist on (only) doing VR for the Sims going forward, I feel they will lose a good chunk of their fanbase/consumer base. They will lose people who get motion sickness or wear glasses or maybe just plain don't like VR like I do (or fit all three categories, like I do XD), and that's not going into how expensive VR equipment is. And how long I expect it to still be very expensive.

I don't think VR is going to be the main focus, but I do see opportunities for VR-compatibility aka "you get to see the world through your sim's eyes!" sort of feature.

Well, first it sounds cool to talk about at stockholder meetings. Plenty of folks and investment analysts who follow and invest in games but never play them. All they know is if the NY Times as a newspaper now offers VR stories you can explore with a pair of cheap cardboard holder you can stick your iPhone into and look all around. And it could even be more of an augmented reality where you could visualize your sims and their environment overlaid in your own living room. Picture Bella sitting on your couch. Valuable gameplay? No. Potential for 5 minutes of amusement? Yes.

Second, think of the adult mods that could be created and have native VR support built right in game.