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[Column] General: Anticipating The Sims 4
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
It's hard to believe that The Sims is ready for its fourth iteration but it's true! In today's Fair Game, we talk about why this is a big deal and something to look forward to playing. No. Really. You'll have to read it to believe it before adding your thoughts to the comments.
So, the last couple weeks, amid deadlines, earning money, incurring bills, paying bills and other entirely grown-up pursuits, I’ve been thinking about The Sims, specifically The Sims 4. Some of you are rolling your eyes right now, but stop it. Seriously, you’ll hurt yourselves. Besides, it’s not as if every one of you doesn’t have that One Game; that game that goes beyond the bounds of your normal repertoire, and maybe isn’t seen as socially acceptable by your friends. But you know what? I don’t give a damn. I like what I like and the rest of the gaming world can bite me. I’ve been in love with The Sims franchise since the beginning. No apologies.
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Fair Game: Anticipating The Sims 4.
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Comments
I have pretty much no interest in the Sims, likely due to the mundanity and aforementioned predications, but I agree that the player should be able to pretty much live how they want. What if I just want a friggin tarp in an empty lot, and to be a bum/beggar?
Why not an apocalypse mode where the people have to survive off of the urban ruins, learn to barter, hunt, steal, etc?
It's sad that Western culture has become so devoid of imagination, that we even reflect the boring lives of the masses in some of our games.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I would like to see two game modes for The Sims 4: online mode and single-player mode. And I have this idea (more of fantasy) for the online mode.
So in online mode, you join a server where other players populate the town. The majority of the town's population will be NPCs at first, but as more players join in, the NPCs move out and the new players move in.
The kicker for this online mode is there's no chat function, meaning no one can communicate with you directly with chatboxes. The only means to communicate with other players is by Sim actions.
Also in this hypothetical online mode, when you log out, your Sim still persists in the server and will function like an NPC. You can also queue skills to learn, similar to EVE Online.
Ah... I miss playing The Sims. Sims 3 was a great game, but damn was it buggy and damn that it corrupted my legacy. Will be looking forward to this installment. Let's just hope they don't destroy it... oh EA.
I really hope too see a farm expansion for Sims 4.
I would be interested in a reinvented The Sims Online. I remember how the original TSO was a a huge dissapointment, quickly overshadowed by superior products like There.com and Second Life, but that doesn't mean that the possibility wasn't there to create something amazing.
I'm certainly not interested anymore in more single player The Sims games.
I enjoyed the Sims in all its versions. But I think "3" was the end for me.
BTW if people reading this dont know, it was the Sim2 that popularized making a game then selling it to you in bits and pieces. As an example the first 2 expansions in the Sims 3 were created before the core game released.
And the only reason I even bought the Sims 3 was because of a $39.99 bundle pack from Steam. Which was the core game plus like 4-5 expansions.
So in the end, yes I will probably buy the Sims 4, but only after they've bundled 4-5 expansions to make it worth my while, and keep the price point at around $40-$50.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
meh sims3 killed any drive to play/buy any more maxis games.
after being hosed on TS2 addon packs of stupid shit for 13.99-29.99 each ontop of DLC add on packs.. entering the sims3 i pretty much threw my hands up and flipped it the bird.
Ts2 was an upgrade to TS1 even without any packs ts2 included alot of ts1 complete in it, ts3 had jack #$@#$ squat in it from ts2 ontop of that, it lack all the downtown shop lots that made ts2 fun.. watching my sim walk inside a book store and take several hours to buy a book kinda made me go ... "wtf" fact is they turned TS3 in to a money milking machine knowing people would buy them for an actual complete gaming experiance.. (cause the game is soo shallow and hollow without them IMO)
any TS4 would have to be scores above TS2 and 3 to even get me to bat an eye at it now.. and would need to include atleast 50% of the core features of TS3+dlcs in to its base core install before including dlc.
i bought the CE copy of TS3... felt kinda ripped off for what i got, when CE spore had a crap ton more bonuses included in it
all in all maxis is a shallow company of what it used to be when i first booted up sim earth/ant/farm/city 2000 ect... now its on par with EA for milking its end game users...
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
"Is there some other game that you secretly obsess over when your favorite MMO has grown a bit stale?"
Not secretly, I'm pretty open about Vice City. Amazing game.
Actually I don't even wanted to comment (my eyes are still rolling since the first paragraph, lol) but that odd and even numbers, with *Khaaan! in the end... you know that's just a common rule-of-thumb and not even correct, right?
Spock searching was a great one (#3), though with less reception than Khan. Nemesis was an awful one (#10). And while not in the original line, the new Trek movies are both lame, regardless of even or odd 
Sorry for the off, now Sims. I really loved the series back in the day, maybe until 3k. (btw "For those who have never tried The Sims, think of it as a sort of virtual ant farm" nope, that was Sim Ant, a decent but pretty much forgotten game)
I tried the first Sims as well after launch, but it wasn't my cup of tea, it lacked the strategic aspect of the former Sim games. Pushing around a dude to take a shower or go to the loo, not very sim-ish
Like when the Dune II clones arrived with the "clicking on your men one-by-one on the field" mechanics, which is not even close to strategy.
I admit I know people who are totally hooked onto Sims, with every addon pack purchased and stuff... it's beyond me, but Sims is a huge franchise indeed. I don't think you should be secretly obsessed with it, there are much more Sims players out there than, for example, Vice City fans. It was a nice, coming-out column
That's probably because EA acquired Maxis in 1997.
I was the BIGGEST Sims fan imaginable in Sims 1 and especially in Sims 2. Man, I had ALL xpacs for Sims 2, I played it for years and made tons and tons of fanvideos!
For me Sims 3 was a slap in the face, a sheer betrayal of the fans and players.
My main reason to hate Sims 3 was, as the OP mentioned, super tiny content in the boxes and then tons of extra content you had to pay for EVERY DAMN furniture! So the price per content was skyrocketing. And the xpacs for Sims 3 were not rarely coming now and then, but every 2 or 3 months ANOTHER greedy, expensive 40 dollar xpac was coming, with the SAME miser content and extra buy.
Essentially you had to be rich to keep up with the Sims 3. That's what I REALLY REALLY hated Sims 3 for.
Also, much of the content I was used to was cut. Suddently all the shops and cafes were facades again. Typical example, the car parking animation. In Sims 2, when your sim characters drove the car, you saw them all the way: walking into the garage, stepping into the car, driving the car out of the parking lot or garage and then on the street. In Sims 3 it was like this: the sim walk ONTO the street and the car magically teleports to him.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Not to speak of those super ugly round moon faces! The Sims 2 faces, while being simpler, had 1000 times more character.
No, for me Sims 3 was a catastrophe and I swear I won't buy Sims 4 until I am very very sure EA learns from the Sims 3 debacle. Though I am not really expecting that. I mean, it's EA. They invented greed!
EDIT: And yes, OP, a 1000 times yes about the NO ONLINE PLEASE. I love to play Sims, I loved to play Civ. And I love to play them ALONE. Period. Paragraph.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
a lot of these requests and issues could be solved if they would simply do one thing:
allow for expansive modding of the game.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Regardless of all the cash grabbing, the biggest issue is how terrible the game runs with all the add-ons. My wife has sims3 with all the dlc, and my desktop (i7, 670 4gb, 16 Gb ram, SSD) look like it is run on hamster wheels. It has severely limited player input, poor multiplayer support, and I have to mention it again, too much cash grabbing. We have purchased all the paid expansions since Sims 1, and honestly it has never gotten any better, just slightly better graphics and runs worse each iteration. (Sims making magic is still by far the best expansion they have ever done). I imagine Sims 4 will likely require a mainframe to run decently and a small country's budget to purchase all the dlc.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Haven't played since the first one. Their business ethics just plain suck, they crap all over their customer base.
Just not havin' it.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I still like this franchise, if you wait for sales there is no reason you should pay more than 10 bucks for an expansion and you certainly do not need them all, pick and choose. I only paid 25 for the game (pre order sale)., so a few expansions here and there for games i play for years is not bad. However, stuff packs are a waste, player made stuff is far better.
Sims online was fun in beta, then they broke it and made it such a chore that it was more work than working RL. Everyone left to go play regular Sims. I would think an online or multiplayer attempt is due again, but most sims players won't "grind" like its a job. Total different type of player base.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
I will likely pass on the Sims 4 unless it has a great bundle sale. The way that EA nickle and dimes the sims player base is pretty atrocious. I have been playing The Sims since the start, before EA took over and monopolized the franchise.
The original Sims was more challenging and time consuming than the current version which is why Sims 3 fell flat for me. I have little hope that attractive and sometimes challenging gameplay will make a comeback with sims 4. They have lost me as a die hard sims fan.
lol i already do, i rarely ever buy their titles now. preferring to play a demo see if its even worth buying now. which for a vast majority of games now days simply arent worth it. unless its a "steam" sale where its 9.99 for it plus all major dlc's.. then maybe
nothing EA or maxis or a few publishers have put out now days are worth preordering.. or buying day one
given so much shit is now day 1/2 "dlc" which honestly if this was 1995 would have been included with the disk or given out as an update patch for free 
EA used to be a good company... used to
years ago when people still played sega dreamcast....
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I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson