More Awesome Than You!

Hai!

Sims 4 is out so how much of the advertising was L&P?  If purchased at a store (if it can be) does the Origin application still have to be installed for authentication each time it is played?   Which means one must have the internet to play Sims 4.  

How much of it may actually be modded.  And that so-called mod tool to be included, is it any good?
(Now back to my Sims 2 to test a new mod)

Thanks,

Pcgeek

I don't think this belongs in BLS.

Why wouldn't it be available at a store?  The more pertinent question is, does the box/case contain a disc with the actual game or just a license key to use in Origin?  Also, what Fucking games do you have that actually require authentication each and every time you play them?  According to the EAxis L&P, which you should have been familiar with, the game only requires a one time online activation when you install it, which isn't that different to many other games.  It is really a matter of how much EAxis fucks up the process while screwing everyone for whatever they can get.



Given the absurdity of the post, this is probably the perfect spot for it.

I think you mean ModTheSims.

Anyway so The Sims 4 is out and so far, it's a technical mess, it's packed with enough DRM to put SimCity to shame and as predicted it stands somewhere between The Sims and The Sims 2 as far as content and features go.

Well done EAxis. Well done.

PFFT!!! It's not even close to between TS1 and 2. It's more like The Sims -.00005 what with everything they stripped and the horrible issues it seems to have.

I got a hard copy at the store. It comes with 2 disks. You still need to use Origin to run the game. I believe you only have to be in online mode to register the game then you are good to go with offline.
I played for a few hours and didn't experience any major glitches besides clipping.

Didn't your babies try to kill you? At all?

Not yet, but it's only a matter of time.

I quite like TS4. It runs really well on my machine, saving takes seconds, and travelling between lots works out quicker - 10 seconds loading versus 30-40 seconds of a sim driving across the damn map.
CC creation feels like TS2, and I don't miss CAST that much - it used to slow my game down.

Did I mention I fucking hated toddlers? No toddlers is a good thing, in my view.

• There is an awesome waddle walk when sims need to pee.
• It is quite easy to trigger the emotion you are after, either by using one of the different showering options, or looking at something.
  
• Hur. Take pregnancy test, §15

I'm playing the pirated version (skidrow release + 3dm crack downloaded from private tracker) and here are some of my thoughts:

- Create a Sim looks and feels great; the sculpting feature is so much better than the old slider system
- Decent variety of outfits that actually look good and are more "stylish" than in past games
- Sims generally look way better than in TS2/TS3. Of course this is a matter of personal preference, but this is probably the first Sims game where unconventional features don't automatically make you ugly as fuck. The in-game lighting is also way better; TS4 avoids the problem in TS3 where sims look different in CAS than they do in-game.
- Emotions are glorified moodlets
- Multitasking feels smooth
- UI is a lot more streamlined

I can't say much about the gameplay because I hit an anti-piracy measure 10 minutes into my playthrough. The mosaic censor takes up half of your screen and doesn't go away after your sims are finished showering/peeing. This hasn't been addressed in the Day 1 patch so I can only assume it's an anti-piracy measure.

Toddlers suck. But FYI The Sims 2 and 3 wouldn't take long to save ether back when they didn't have any expansions. If The Sims 4 sells well enough for EA to "spam" us with expansions again, before long, we'll be back to reading War and Peace while we wait for the game to load.

TS3 was never this fast to load or save.

Also, there is nothing wrong with travelling, you ignorant retard. It is UK/Aus spelling.

Add to the likes:
Being able to see when food will spoil. Choosing 1, 4 or 8 servings from the "cook" menu. The fact that eating quick meals will make your sims fat.

Make up your mind.

Now we have proof. It spells like an American and then defends the American spelling form above others. I call falsehood on its self-name and label it truthfully. It is just 'Trash'.

To fix that, just rename "TS4.par" to "The.Sims.4.Launcher.par"

Pros:

• The gameplay is smoother, and it feels more natural to travel (even though I hate the open world as far as it pre-empts rotational play
• I have renewed hope that this iteration of the game will be moddable to my preferences./li]
  
  • I guess that's about it, besides the novelty of a brand new game./li]
    
  Cons:
  
  
  • The "intuitive and tactile" CAS is very difficult to master. You can't really see what you're doing, while you're doing it, and the sim keeps jerking their head around. A slider or a -10 to +10 number for this would have been extremely helpful
  • Half the eyes are Asian, which is not bad in itself, but leads to bad randomization. There are no intermediate hair colors (light red, light brown, medium blonde, etc. The black people look like diluted coffee
  • Only the presets can be randomized. Detailed mode has to be done by hand, and is the hardest part to do anything with. It's only helpful if you know exactly what you want your sim to look like.
  • No rotational gameplay (Ugh!) There is a "universal clock" which runs for everybody, so no motive time management if you want to play more than one family.
  • Oona did not make the cut, when EA decided who would live in the pre-made houses. (Those Caliente bitches).

I like some thing but mostly Im just frustrated with the lack of simple things that I feel are just a sims game must and the cluster mess that is gardening. Also, whats with menus being all over the place? I have to go all the way up just to change floors.

But my #1 most hated thing is the lack of CASt. Seriously my sims house looks like a flea market reject. NOTHING matches in color or style.

Now that I've fixed the mosaic (thanks ariffrazalin) and played the game for a couple of hours, here are some thoughts on gameplay:

- Very basic story progression. I've seen inactive sims advance in their careers and cultivate new relationships, but haven't seen babies popping up yet. Implications: your neighbours will eventually die out (if aging is enabled) and be replaced by new townies. If you want them to have children and leave some sort of legacy behind, you have to play them. Heavily encourages Sims2 "rotational" playstyle where you disable aging for other households and just play them cyclically.
- Really, REALLY fast load and save times. Good performance. Important for me, as I personally stopped playing TS3 because of the insane lag and load/save times.
- Something weird going on with weight/muscle gain. Sims put on weight really easily if they don't exercise, especially if you feed them fatty foods. While some consider this "realistic", people do have natural metabolism and maintain a steady body weight even if they lead sedentary lifestyles. Looking forward to a mod that limits the amount of weight you can put on simply by breathing. Muscle gain is broken, I've had a sim work out for a few hours and he went from lean to ridiculously ripped.
- Haven't experienced the demon baby bug yet; my NVIDIA drivers are up to date.
- Socialization feels much more natural. I hated the Social system in TS2/TS3, it was annoying how you queued up a bunch of socials and stood there chatting until you became friends. This is related to the multitasking feature but now it feels better.
- Lack of content becomes obvious once you make enough money to buy everything. Personally, I don't care that they stripped gameplay mechanics out of TS4 -- whereas TS3 was about quantity, TS4 seems to be about "quality" (or at least polish) -- but it irks me that there's so little furniture/buyable content to choose from. This is one area where quantity IS quality.
- Weights of moodlets/emotions need to be adjusted (with a mod?) Certain events should cause more "permanent" moods. For example, my sim's spouse died and he was sad for all about 3 hours until someone brightened his day. I assume this can be fixed by adjusting the weights on the relevant moodlets. Actually, emotions need tweaking in general.
- Need more worlds.
- Need better story progression, so that unplayed households don't just all die out and get replaced.
- Experienced CTDs upon opening up the world map. This can occur when you press 'M', travel to a lot, or ask someone out on a date. May be related to the crack. Save often.
- Sometimes the game doesn't successfully save. This usually happens after an autosave overwrites one of your hard saves. Solution: make another hard save.
- The game is essentially a framework for future dlc/expansion packs. Suffice to say I won't be spending money on any of it.  :D

Definitely the thing that's been annoying me the most. I don't understand why you'd change a UI that has worked fine for 3 iterations of a game so drastically with seemingly no reason.

This and the fact roofs seem to have turned into some odd kind of object.

I now play the sims the same way I play Skyrim, with one hand on the keyboard for shortcuts.

Honestly I think the UI is a lot better. It's out of the way, for the most part.

On the roofs, I'm still WTF-ing about that too.

I didn't know that the quick meals made your sims fat. That explains a lot now.

Apparently eating high calorie foods like the protein meal you make when energised, will also make you gain weight.

My sim discovered fire:
(http://i.imgur.com/vFwOev1.png)

And there is quite a crowd when playing chess at the library.
(http://i.imgur.com/ojNV7AT.png)

So... hate sex is a thing.

(http://i.imgur.com/RAGzr6U.png)

It was actually incredibly tedious getting to this point. I had to keep alternating between "Criticize woohoo ability" for the huge relationship drop and "Apologize...in bed" to keep the friendship meter down and the romance meter high. Ironic, but it was the most effective combination. Eventually I got the option to FIGHT, and then they became Enemies with Benefits.  :D

Haven't played that much yet but it basically feels like Sims 2.5. As I already whined before, gone is the color wheel and so is the open world. There are some improvements and I think the sims themselves look better than they did in TS3. I do like to play it but I feel the novelty is starting to wear off already.

Totally this. I've had the game a week and I'm already kind of "meh" about playing. I was so happy that my sims wouldn't look like puddings that I think I jumped the gun on if the game was actually worth having.

Can someone just clarify for me, from what I have read, the game isn't an open hood like TS3, but lot based as with TS2?  Some comments and screenshots make it hard to tell.  If it is like TS2, what happens with the time when you return you your home lot, does it return to the time you left like in TS2, or does it continue, and can you switch between multiple lots to attend to multiple family members needs/wants?  From what has been posted, it seems like the hood aging is somewhere between TS2 and TS3, with some aging and some not?

I am still very much undecided on TS4 and these issues would help decide whether to try now, or wait a few months and see what the future brings with the next EP/SP and any patches they might throw out there.

Its TS2 style lot - the street you choose to live on is yours to explore but loading screens if you wanna visit a neighbor.

Time goes by as normal, no timemachining like TS2, and you can switch between members.

From what I've read, townies may not age.

I'd wait for EPs and price drops, honestly.

Not so - townies do age, and can die of old age. However, they don't progress - so they won't get married, have kids, etc. They just get older. The game moves new townies into the townie pool and into houses around the neighbourhood when the population falls, but these mostly don't seem to be in connected families. So, for example, my teen sim met a few teens at the park, but they didn't have any obvious family members (admittedly I can't work out if they have townie parents somewhere that I just haven't found, or they're just generated totally alone, but the latter seems most likely so far), and they weren't living in a house. They all grew up, and now 1 of them is living next door as a solo YA, but the rest are just YA townies somewhere, floating about in their lonerish fashion. They do make friends with each other, but only in situations where your sim is present - so if your sim chats with 5 of them, those 5 will build their relationships with one another at the same time, but they don't seem to register external relationships (tested with one who moved in, and seemed only to know the exact same people he'd met at my sim's party, despite the fact that I'd seen him at a park playing chess with someone else).

From the neighborhood screen you can go to "Household Management" in the upper right corner, then the "Unplayed Households" tab. At the top are the other moved in families but if you scroll down there should be a bunch that say "Currently not in world". These are the townies. They're shared across both neighborhoods too so it doesn't matter which one you are currently in.

It's nice because it gives you an easy way to access them. One of my Sims formed a relationship with a townie and I went to see if I could visit his house except he ended up being a townie and not having one so I grabbed him from that screen and moved him into his own place.

I like that the townies at least age so you don't get that weird 'Oh that's the same teen boy great-grandma dated' effect that TS2 had.

Since we're not getting true neighborhood progression though I hope someone at least can bring back the old non-played sims gain skills too mod. At least I assume they don't because I don't see bars on them when my sims are playing chess with them and such. I do notice they gain/lose relationship with other sims, but I suppose that's obvious.  :P

So if you can't prettify your sims' wardrobe and interior design with CAS, and you can't do story progression, just WTF is the point of this game? Do EAxis not know that playing Sims is basically playing dollies?  >:(

You forgot the teeny, tiny neighborhoods with no room for expansion and no world editor to plop down space for extra lots.

This was posted on a Sims 4 forum:

What prevented me from even considering the game was fact that over half the development time was spent working on a online version of the game before they decided not to go that route and only had 1 - 2 yrs to switch to single player offline game.  The game clearly shows it was meant to be online and still has the limited engine, hence no terrain editing tools, no pools, loading screens, small worlds, and all lots flat.  It's clear they ran out of time to add anything but what you have now.  I'm not forking over $60+ to fund another EA mistake.  The game may get better in the future with EP and so on, but the base game alone should be enough to keep one entertained for as long as you want to play it without having to add an EP or SP to it, but, according to my friends who bought it, it doesn't.

Although I didn't buy the game and don't plan to, I have several friends who have and all have returned them via Origin.  The main complaints were after several hours they ran out of things to do, only one play style now, toddlers tied to the crib was a killer for one of my friends.  Too many bugs and clipping for a $70 game and family/legacy style play is almost non-existent.

Also:

http://ts4news.com/post/94541924952/89-features-missing-from-the-sims-4 is interesting.

I will not be buying this nor procuring it (it is really an EA ripoff) until they fix it.  They should never have published it until it was ready.  Who am I kidding, it's EA.  >:(

No-way am I buying Sims 4; I might try it when there is a fully working scene release, but for now I'll avoid it.

Sims 3 is still my favourite, but I'm frequently being hampered by that 3gb 32bit barrier, and that really kills the game for me; it needs something like the enb wrapper for Skyrim that shifts assets away from the main .exe, but I doubt that will ever happen; I'm assuming this is why they went back to the single loaded lot style of Sims 2 to reduce on using memory and thus, not require a 64bit .exe; I'd rather play Sims 2 if I was going to go back to single lots.

On the official site, SimGuruGrant is asking what people want in story progression.  He says the game already has some degree of story progression (he's probably referring to the fact that inactives age and die), and adding to it shouldn't be a problem.  Though whether it'll be patched in for free, or we'll have to pay for it, hasn't been confirmed.

Aging and dying isn't story progression, that's time progression. EA. I swear. They need to get married and spawn. I now have a new child born into my family yet all the sims living in houses have teens. That means I have to pair her with a townie, if she ends up being my heir, and townies have no $. It also means that at the moment her wishes to make a child friend are unobtainable.

I'd expect a patch-in. Some things are too hard to make into a mod (which is what feature DLC effectively is).

Can anyone tell me if relationships are the same as in 3 or back to being two-sided? You know, being able to like someone while they hate you or vice versa?

Except they don't have kids or adopt so as far as I can tell once the Goths etc die off you'll end up with an empty neighborhood populated by homeless townies only unless you intervene. And those wants to friend x# of neighbors or whatever won't be unobtainable unless you go and manually move some new sims or townies into houses. Nobody will be living in the non starter homes either if you don't use money cheats.

Same as in Sims 3 unfortunately :(. How i wish they would implement that and genetics from sims 2.

Edit: I stand corrected, apparently they DO exist. I just hadn't noticed it.

I actually managed to create differing relationship bar levels between two Sims when I was messing around with the relationship cheats. It was either a glitch, or perhaps the game does support two-sided relationships but adjusts the levels for both Sims to match each other for whatever reason.

No, differing relationship levels exist already. It's just that well, if somebody hates you and reacts badly to your jokes all the time even the dumbest Sims will notice. The differing levels are probably going to be only in degree. You'd really have to work at that kind of oblivious like.

OMG, the neightborhoods! Just downloaded the game and I am shocked and disgusted with how tiny and ridiculous the neighborhoods are! And you can't do anything about it! Boo, hiss!

At least it exists already. It was my main annoyance with 3, it took all the drama out of the game. It was hardly realistic that when you were happily scaring/harrassing someone, BOTH of your relationship meters dropped, or cheating on someone meant two-way hatred. Which kinda means I'll have to get this game after all. Though I wonder with these restrictions I keep reading about, if it will be possible to create a medieval hood  :-\

No way yet to create a hood at all - most you can do is build houses, AFAICT

Flat houses. Well, flat surroundings for non-flat houses.

I'm actually okay with the segmented neighborhood, but it's much too small. And flat.

From the smallest house builder I know. (Other end of the scale from my efforts.)

Good God, how is it even a Sims game? And for 70 bucks? Yeah...no.

I'm having Sim City Societies flashbacks here.

:P

I meant number of lots. I may build small houses, but I also press the baby button a lot. The spawn has to go somewhere. There's...what?...20 liveable lots per 'hood for a total of 40. I'll have those filled with just my founder's descendants in three generations.

That really annoys me too. I've got three generations in one house and I'm waiting for grandma & her sister to pass on so that the others of their children can have kids of their own. I don't like putting them out into the world if there is no story progression.

I thought this was amusing:  (http://i.gyazo.com/b1a5670fc816bb96ef25d702c46a9e51.png)  She wasn't even tired!

I just had that happen last night. The sim in question had the never tired reward too so he shouldn't need to sleep. Ever.  ???

Anyone else kind of annoyed at how long it takes to save up money in the game? It's kind of a double edged sword because in the previous games it was way too easy to rack up cash, but I think replacing broken items takes up way too much of a family's income, especially as items get nicer. I had kind of hoped that my test family would have enough money to move out of their starter by now, since the two adults are at least level 7 in their respective careers. Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, but I also take almost a week to get promoted even though I try to do the daily tasks and send my sims to work in the correct mood.

Stop replacing the broken items.  Even my Sims with pretty low handiness levels seem to be able to fix the items.  Send them out fishing also if you need more money.  It's easy to rack up the cash that way.

I had difficulty hiring a nanny. Both of my adults had to go to work because NO MATERNITY LEAVE FUCK YOU AMERICA *cough* and I couldn't find Nanny anywhere on the phone  ???

That's because there' not one.

Apparently if you leave the house, the baby is magically whisked away to day care. Children can be home by themselves.


Plus, as you build up mechanical points, you get the options to upgrade in ways that make them break less often. Since the beginning of my household, I've had one sim do all the repairs. He was a full adult when he joined in and now has reached the point where the game is telling me of his impending death. The cheap computer still breaks every week or so, but nothing else has broken for ages with me doing whatever upgrade I could as they came available. And this is a two-bathroom household for six sims.

And sometimes they don't come home when you get home. I had to wait until I went to work and then came home again one day with my first game spawn.

I just made an elder and dressed her up like a nanny and moved her ass in. Gotta have my nannies!

I another of my houses I moved one of those 'public gardener' townies in because I got tired of fussing with all the plants.

The lack of almost any service npcs besides the really half assed maids that don't work worth a shit is annoying.

After a week of play.. here is my take.

The game is different than TS3.  Good or bad is a matter of individual taste.
Here are some basic thoughts.

-The game focuses more on individual families rather than global community and community stories.  You never really need to leave your home lot, and are not really encouraged to do so.
-There's no real community growth without your direct input. 
-Some of the vistas look very beautiful if you scroll in tight on your sim and rotate the camera to view the horizon (this requires switching to TS3 style camera controls in options.. the default options do not let you do this.)
-Because there are not many interesting mods to contribute to actual gameplay yet... it still feels rather empty and meaningless. (this will probably change unless modding TS3 ends up just being more enjoyable for the more talented people)
-The game is very easy if you have good showers stoves etc.. and unplayable if you have poor quality appliances and furniture. (unless you mod)
-Relationships are easy and meaningless.  Cheat on your spouse in front of their face.. call their mother a llama..  slap them around.. then woohoo all you want not 5 minutes later.
-Load time is good...  drawback, basically every lot is on its own.  Sure you see your neighbors house.. but it's just fluff.. you can't see in it and nothing comes out of it.

I could go on.  I think it's better if I sum it up as this.
The game is not TS3... but it is not bad.  It is a beta shell ready for the unpaid EA development staff (modders) to take over and make it fun.

Advice:   Do not buy it now and do not buy it at this price.  Wait until people mod in some depth to the game (and no i don't mean expansions.. they will just be additional shells)  Wait for the modding community to do the job right.
The only reason to buy it now is if you want to get a jump on modding the thing yourself.. otherwise you are not missing out on a dang thing.

If you don't mind a digital download version of this game then you can go to CDKeys.com and get it for quite a bit cheaper. I bought mine for $45.25 and this week it's less expensive than what I paid.

http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/7 (http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/7)

And you're part of the reason why EA keeps putting out shit games.

No, I am not responsible for EA producing half developed games or ones that are lacking in what the fan base wants. Digital downloads became available with Sims3 from EA. Many simmers cannot afford the higher prices of the Sims games and others are not willing to pay the higher prices as a matter of principle.

There was a lot of negative press about the Sims4 and as it turns out it was quite spot on. The base game is not worth $60.00 to $70.00 as it is missing a lot of key aspects of the previous generations/iterations. I will not be buying any EP's or SP's of this game since it is not an advancement but instead several steps backwards.

The game is a bad game.  You just listed a bunch of objectively terrible things about the game that point out why it is bad.  Your examples don't support your thesis, and you should feel bad.  LURK MOAR.

How do my examples not support my thesis?  I'm confused.  I just recommended not to buy it.

I don't feel bad. I stand by my comments.
The game is flawed.
It is not a bad game.. it is valued incorrectly.  At $10 this game would be worth purchasing.
Would you not buy it at that price?
There is a sufficient shell to be modded for additional entertainment value.

You can be objective, or you can troll.  Up to you.

EA is a pack of thieves parading as a corporate entity, and their products aren't worth anything as long as they're packaged with EA's proprietary spyware.

Subjectively, I'd pay full price for TS4 if EA dropped Origin. Not only that, but I'd also have bought several other EA products at release that I have instead skipped. Alas, there are enough people that don't follow this philosophy that there's no chance of EA dropping Origin, which means they've lost my business forever.

On a separate note, I still can't see why anyone would play TS4 over TS3 or TS2. So far, the only features I've seen that interest me are the multitasking and marginally prettier sims, and look at everything you have to sacrifice to get them.

Faek ETA: By the way, I reject your absurd assertion that your opinion is objective. Learn what words mean before using them. Or don't, and become our latest spork holder.

If you were referring to my post.  I never made that assertion. someone else did =p
And yes, I agree..   should probably wait for the game to be available on steam rather than on Origin before considering purchase. 

DRM by any other name is still DRM. Just because the one pile of excrement isn't as grotesque as the other doesn't change the fact that both are full of shit.

It's the lesser of 2 evils. Without pirating, given that those will probably be the only options, steam would be the better way to go.

I'm another person who will not be buying this game.
The Sims franchise was something I loved, I lived for. EA has taken that and pulverized it into this Zynga-like trash.
The closed and incredibly tiny world was the final straw after being disgusted beyond belief that CaSt would not be implemented. I adore CaSt even though I cannot currently play Sims3 on my computer or have been able to for over a year due to CaSt lag. I'm very much looking forward to buying a rig that will allow Sims3 to coast along at least a lot better. I understand that no lag in Sims3 is an impossibru-ity.
Also, I enjoyed toddlers very, very much. Eventually, I got the mod to quicken their training, but I still loved having them around the houses. Furious they were removed to be implemented into an expansion most surely.
What really gets me are the EA tools that just praise the game no matter what is thrown at them. We can't make a difference in the corporate game world if we just bend over and take their fucking like a good consumer slave.
That appears to be the case in nearly all the societal flaws though. People just take that ramming and plod on with whatever is given to them.

My hopes now are that:

A. My new computer will make Sims3 nicely playable again.

B. Someone else will finally step up and create the Sims clone of our dreams. (I don't understand how this hasn't happened yet)

C. Sims 3 lovers/modders will eventually create a more elegant, modded stand-alone version of Sims 3 that is all the Awesome, minimal EA and will be around for the next 20 years or so.