Sims 4 is out what's the scoop?

[KellyQ]

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.

[wizard_merlin]

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.

[ruku]

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.

[Seqkat]

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.

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

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).

[Motoki]

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. 

[Grimma]

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? 

[jezzer]

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.

[LittlehatefulLottie]

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. 

[Anach]

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.

[Capitaine Marie]

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? 

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.

[Zazazu]

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. 

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).

[Enelen]

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?

[Motoki]

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.

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.

[Leeahna]

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?

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.

[Roobs]

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.

[Madame Mim]

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.

[Grimma]

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.

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!

[Enelen]

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.

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 

[Grimma]

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.

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

[Zazazu]

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.

[witch]

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.)

[Brand]

Also:

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

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

I'm having Sim City Societies flashbacks here.

[Zazazu]

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.)

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.

[Madame Mim]

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.

[BlueSoup]

I thought this was amusing:    She wasn't even tired!