New The Sims generation game officially announced!

[gabeoz 7,915]

10 minutes ago, Helxig said:

I really wish the original teams who worked on the first 3 would come back on board and make something amazing for TS5, but it's not gonna happen

Most of the producers and higher ups on the sims are legacy developers, people who have been on the team since 1/2/3 

[gabeoz 7,915]

On 10/19/2022 at 4:31 PM, Helxig said:

As a long time fan since the FIRST game I was so disappointed with everything missing from TS4 when it first released that I decided to always torrent the games   

And while I enjoy watching other people use the build mode and it looks amazing, there are a couple other things I could NOT get my head around that ruined it for me so I just never played the game.

1. The side scrolling with the mouse is sh.it and feels totally different to the other games, and when the controls for rotating the screen and everything felt so off I just couldn't stay centered and I'd get a headache just trying to rotate the camera 

2. The whole 'each room has to be a room before you can place floor tiles' thing just effed me up so hard in one of my builds. The game just would NOT recognise the rooms the way I wanted it to and it was SO simple like OMG why does it have to register as a 'room' instead of letting me freely place walls wherever I wanted. I never played again after that headache

The camera controls can be changed in the options menu, you can revert to the TS3 camera in there if you’d like. As for rooms, they can be a bit finicky to figure out, but you can stilll free place walls if you’d like

[hELXIG 41,585]

3 minutes ago, gabeoz said:

Sims 4 is definitely a longer lasting games than its predecessors, but it also takes a LONG time to develop. The sims 4 began development before TS3 even released. The Sims 5 (the one this thread is about) began development around 2019.

Okay so... why did they wait until 2019 to start developing a game they knew would take 10 years to develop? They're one of the most successful game companies in the world and they can't hire the staff they need to develop a game any faster? I call BS. They're just milking the franchise for allll the money they can, which is more easily done with pointless game packs

 

1 minute ago, gabeoz said:

Most of the producers and higher ups on the sims are legacy developers, people who have been on the team since 1/2/3 

WHAT? Then what went wrong??? When and how did they lose their spark? There has to be some higher up calling the shots and stifling their creativity then if that's the case. TS4 was completely devoid of everything that made the original games so unique. Their wacky, weird, funny, anything-goes gameplay

[hELXIG 41,585]

  

Just now, gabeoz said:

The camera controls can be changed in the options menu, you can revert to the TS3 camera in there if you’d like. As for rooms, they can be a bit finicky to figure out, but you can stilll free place walls if you’d like

Yeah I changed the camera options but they still were horrible. Instead or rotating around the focal point of what you're looking at, the camera almost kind of pans, which uncentres you from where you're focussing. So I found you had to rotate and THEN re-centre which is a horrible mechanic and not intuitive at all for a building simulator. Also the side-scrolling with the mouse doesn't work on the lower part of the screen where the build-buy options are like it used to. So if I want to sort of... pan-backwards I can't anymore. I'd have to rotate, then move the camera, then rotate back around, then re-centre which is RIDUCULOUS. All three of the first games did not have these problems. Made it too much of a headache to even bother with

[nATAH 42,275]

10 minutes ago, gabeoz said:

Most of the producers and higher ups on the sims are legacy developers, people who have been on the team since 1/2/3 

how did they get it so wrong tho

[gabeoz 7,915]

3 minutes ago, Helxig said:

Okay so... why did they wait until 2019 to start developing a game they knew would take 10 years to develop? They're one of the most successful game companies in the world and they can't hire the staff they need to develop a game any faster? I call BS. They're just milking the franchise for allll the money they can, which is more easily done with pointless game packs

 

WHAT? Then what went wrong??? When and how did they lose their spark? There has to be some higher up calling the shots and stifling their creativity then if that's the case. TS4 was completely devoid of everything that made the original games so unique. Their wacky, weird, funny, anything-goes gameplay

I don’t disagree that they’re milking the game, but that’s just how games work today. Companies shoot for the live service model, games that last for much longer with constant dlc and large updates. But developing a new game is not as simple as hiring more people, you have an issue of diminishing returns where it can be more cumbersome and eventually counterproductive to hire even more and more staff. A game will take several years to develop, especially a life sim game and that won’t change. 
 

what happened with TS4 is a result of horrible decisions by EA. The former CEO of EA refused to green light any new game that wasn’t online multiplayer only (because he saw it as the “future”) this resulted in the sims 4 spending 5 years of development as a multiplayer only game where the game was literally finished and ready for shipment with a whole advertising campaign just barely starting its rollout in Asia. Then 2013 happened when sim city flopped, the team was given a year to transform it into a single player game like the previous games. This is where issues like the simulation lag started where the team switched to another programming language to speed up development to get it out in time. (Which is why things like pools, ghosts, toddlers, etc weren’t included on release). I make cc for the sims 4 and have had the privilege to have several interactions with the developers over the past several years. they are genuinely passionate about the game and many have been here since the first sims game, what we see on the surface doesn’t remotely show to how the industry really works and what goes into a game like the sims.

[gabeoz 7,915]

12 minutes ago, NATAH said:

how did they get it so wrong tho

The reply just above this should explain what happened 

[hELXIG 41,585]

59 minutes ago, gabeoz said:

I don’t disagree that they’re milking the game, but that’s just how games work today. Companies shoot for the live service model, games that last for much longer with constant dlc and large updates. But developing a new game is not as simple as hiring more people, you have an issue of diminishing returns where it can be more cumbersome and eventually counterproductive to hire even more and more staff. A game will take several years to develop, especially a life sim game and that won’t change. 
 

what happened with TS4 is a result of horrible decisions by EA. The former CEO of EA refused to green light any new game that wasn’t online multiplayer only (because he saw it as the “future”) this resulted in the sims 4 spending 5 years of development as a multiplayer only game where the game was literally finished and ready for shipment with a whole advertising campaign just barely starting its rollout in Asia. Then 2013 happened when sim city flopped, the team was given a year to transform it into a single player game like the previous games. This is where issues like the simulation lag started where the team switched to another programming language to speed up development to get it out in time. (Which is why things like pools, ghosts, toddlers, etc weren’t included on release). I make cc for the sims 4 and have had the privilege to have several interactions with the developers over the past several years. they are genuinely passionate about the game and many have been here since the first sims game, what we see on the surface doesn’t remotely show to how the industry really works and what goes into a game like the sims.

Well tbh that's the problem with gaming in 2022 in general. 

Okay well that makes a bit more sense. What an absolute MESS. Like I thought, it was one of the higher ups with too much control stifling the teams' creativity. 

Well at the very least this gives me a glimmer of hope back that TS5 might actually be great. I really hope they take all the feedback from long time simmers into account, what we LOVED and miss about TS1-3, and what we hated about TS4. 

Bring back the chaos, random chance events, quirky music and sound effects, the campiness and craziness. Instead of the social bunny, therapist, tragic clown, skunks, cockroaches, random phone calls, funny interactions, aspirations, wants and fears, etc we ended up with a knitting and recycling simulator where you have to micro manage every interaction and force your own story, where nothing interesting happens that's out of your control, and it took over 8 years for babies to exist.

And one thing that simply cannot be defended is the fact every single pack that's come out has been horrendously broken and under-tested to the point it's a joke. And people pay good money for that crap. Oh and also destroying the lore created in TS1-3 okay bye no more complaining I promise lmao

Just get it together Sims team. You have a chance to bring it back to it's former glory. Everything rides on TS5 now.