The Sims 4

[TheArtilleryman]

I'm a Sims 3 player. It needs mods to run at anything above potato performance but the expansions are the best. My sims always traveled the world and culturally appropriated the natives.

Any mod recommendations? I downloaded the cracked version with all DLC and it's overwhelming...only ever played vanilla back in the day.

 

[Elysian]

Any mod recommendations? I downloaded the cracked version with all DLC and it's overwhelming...only ever played vanilla back in the day.

There’s a fan made optimisation patch that apparently makes TS3 run much more smoothly:
https://lazyduchess.tumblr.com/post/657467259898527744/the-sims-3-smooth-patch-21

 

[Polystyrene Glioblastoma]

After the news that The Sims 5 has been cancelled and EA is being vague about everything except multiplayer, I tried to give The Sims 4 a 3rd chance, but ended up uninstalling. Even pirating it like I did with most of the DLC is not worth it.

Whatever shitty refresh they're doing in lieu of the original Project Rene will not be substantial enough without a massive overhaul of 4 and a "classic" mode.

I cannot get over how atrocious the UI is and how unresponsive everything about the gameplay is. The design choice of the different worlds is unsightly and often clashes with what you'd want to build on a lot.

For example, I wanted to move to a big lot to do a legacy challenge.

At first I moved to one on an Island in Windenburg but it had an ugly, deteriorating castle wall hard-coded on the edges.

Then I move to the big horse ranch, but you're telling me you EA can't bother to connect the driveway to the lot, so there's an ugly patch of grass in the middle? The bridge to it isn't even built for cars which pulls out the realism.

I then tried to move to the British countryside area, but it doesn't connect to the road which is unrealistic. Hell, even without mods sometimes 2 looks better.

The worlds are incredibly flawed. At least in 2 and 3 you can build and change them. Even mods cannot fix TS4.

My hope is once AI is advanced enough in the future, modders will be able to use it to build upon 2 and 3 more than they already have.

 

[Bug Soldier]

I'm glad The Sims 5 has been cancelled - because if anything it proves that The Sims 4 is nothing more than a microtransaction-filled slop it's always been. Think about previous Sims games life cycle, the gap between 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 3 to 4 had been around 5 years. The Sims 4 has long outlived its supposed lifetime yet its features are barely at the level of its predecessors. And the 'sale' graph is funny because the base game is free. A lot of its problems are on the design direction leve.

EA probably can't be trusted to make a full-featured, fun Sims games anymore.

 

[SmallKiwi]

I find it perplexing that Sims 4 does not a have a world builder. It's probably one of the major reasons why it's so sucky. 2 and 3 had it. With Sims 2, you could either use the existing templates or if you had SimCity 4 you could export your terrain and import it to Sims 2 with the same file format. With the Sims 3, there was "World Builder", but honestly that tool was kinda bad because the lack of documentation made it a nightmare to use and understand, but at least it was better than nothing. But Sims 4 took a step backward and now you're stuck with same sucky worlds that don't even allow you to add lots.

 

[Caesar]

Maxis is one of the biggest tragedies of the gaming industry ever.

 

[Accept Only Substitutes]

Any mod recommendations? I downloaded the cracked version with all DLC and it's overwhelming...only ever played vanilla back in the day.

If you, like me, hate hats (mostly because they're ugly and take up SO MUCH space in CAS) years ago I made a mod to hide them. I have just reinstalled TS3, once i refresh my memory on how I did this I'll make sure it still works for the current patch and add any missing hats.

I'm so used to the graphics in TS4 that I didn't agree with those who kept saying it was soulless and the games charm was missing.

Then I reinstalled TS3 and my god, y'all were right. There's still a lot of things I like better in 4, hairs, for example, 3's hairs are just fugly. But the game itself feels like Maxis in a way I didn’t realize I was missing. Hopefully it runs better on my current computer, because I'm having a lot of fun.

 

[Rembrandt]

Sims 4 does not a have a world builder

Remember, it was going to be a multiplayer game (Archive). EA wanted to make a push for online only social games back in 2010s and pussied out the moment one of the games (SimCity) flopped. It had to be hastily reworked into single player, resulting in a plethora of missing features.

 

[Polystyrene Glioblastoma]

Any mod recommendations? I downloaded the cracked version with all DLC and it's overwhelming...only ever played vanilla back in the day.

NRAAS has a collection of good mods. MasterController, ErrorTrap, Overwatch, and StoryProgression all help you have greater control over the neighborhood and avoid problems that may happen.

If you use StoryProgression though, make sure you set the last names upon marriage not be hyphenated otherwise it gets annoying, because for some reason this is the default for the mod. I prefer the last name being the male sim's or the oldest sim's.

 

[SmallKiwi]

Remember, it was going to be a multiplayer game (Archive). EA wanted to make a push for online only social games back in 2010s and pussied out the moment one of the games (SimCity) flopped. It had to be hastily reworked into single player, resulting in a plethora of missing features.

Even then, is it really that hard for them to emplement such a feature? Are Sims 4 players fine with the boring worlds they provide? Have they asked EA for this feature and EA said it's not possible or that it's not their goal?

 

[Rembrandt]

Even then, is it really that hard for them to emplement such a feature? Are Sims 4 players fine with the boring worlds they provide? Have they asked EA for this feature and EA said it's not possible or that it's not their goal?

Well, the game's been selling well enough without it. Toddlers were added, but otherwise, that's about it for major features.

 

[jje100010001]

EA have officially cancelled The Sims 5 and are just going to turn Sims 4 into a live service with multiplayer and paid mods on top of the infinite expansions. REEEEEEEE-

Edit: Ninja’d lol

Sims 4 Ever

 

[Thiletonomics]

Details about Project Rene may have been leaked, and it's even worse than what people expected. The fact that The Sims Mobile stopped receiving new updates this year, and these details about Project Rene have came out, shows that EA is still being stubborn and trying to make an online version of a Sims game a thing, even though all of their previous attempts failed.

 

[Accept Only Substitutes]

Details about Project Rene may have been leaked, and it's even worse than what people expected. The fact that The Sims Mobile stopped receiving new updates this year, and these details about Project Rene have came out, shows that EA is still being stubborn and trying to make an online version of a Sims game a thing, even though all of their previous attempts failed.

Ugh, the quests thing in the Cafe shift remind me of Diner Dash/mobile games. I always end up more stressed after playing them than I was before. Having customers walk out/failing the level is the opposite of cozy, which the Sims has always been.

This online thing reminds me very much of Sims Online, which I was a (brief) tester for. It was not as fun as solo play, because you had to deal with other people as well as the limitations of the game. That didn't last long in terms of online games lifespan, so apparently everyone agreed with me.

I won't be playing Rene. I have four versions of the Sims and gigs of CC for them all. I don't need or want anything online. Maybe local multi-player, my husband and I like playing games together, but not mmo type of online.

 

[Thiletonomics]

EA has rolled out a mass banwave that affected TS4 owners, as well as for their other games, with no explanation for the bans were given, presumably because EA got compromised:

Some players were able to get their EA account bans overturned, but it yet again proves that games moving to account-based systems will rear its ugly head, when a company bans your games because of something silly.

 

[Kane Lives]

I find it perplexing that Sims 4 does not a have a world builder. It's probably one of the major reasons why it's so sucky. 2 and 3 had it. With Sims 2, you could either use the existing templates or if you had SimCity 4 you could export your terrain and import it to Sims 2 with the same file format. With the Sims 3, there was "World Builder", but honestly that tool was kinda bad because the lack of documentation made it a nightmare to use and understand, but at least it was better than nothing. But Sims 4 took a step backward and now you're stuck with same sucky worlds that don't even allow you to add lots.

Isn't it funny how options in successive sequels seem to regress? We went from being able to interconnect games of different genres (If no one remembers, SimCopter used to be able to import SimCity 2000 cities to serve as your own custom scenarios, SimCity 4 and TS2 intergrations were already mentioned, though I forget if the reverse was true as well), to a shitty attempt at supporting a world editor in TS3 to nothing at all in TS4.

Corporate enshittification is a real thing and I wish nothing but bad luck on all the EA suits that watered down the genre in successive generations despite having 1000x compute power than the games of 20 years ago.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Isn't it funny how options in successive sequels seem to regress? We went from being able to interconnect games of different genres (If no one remembers, SimCopter used to be able to import SimCity 2000 cities to serve as your own custom scenarios, SimCity 4 and TS2 intergrations were already mentioned, though I forget if the reverse was true as well), to a shitty attempt at supporting a world editor in TS3 to nothing at all in TS4.

Corporate enshittification is a real thing and I wish nothing but bad luck on all the EA suits that watered down the genre in successive generations despite having 1000x compute power than the games of 20 years ago.

In addition, you can import TS1 Sims into SimCity 4, where they'll live out their lives and tell you how they feel about your city, and you could also import SimCity 2000 cities to drive in them with Streets of SimCity. Will Wright did emphasize the cross-game compatibility in an SC2K interview, but as we've seen, that cross-game compatibility eventually was no longer a thing.

 

[Accept Only Substitutes]

Fucking EA, man. I updated to get the latest kits today and since my Sim was expecting I decided to decorate the nursery with the new Storybook nursery stuff.

Unless you use the default black ~goth~ color (ugh) good luck creating a matching nursery. The items in the kit don't have all the same color swatches. This is why TS3 is superior.



The furniture in this shot is all from the new kit. The chair is blue, the shelf is yellow, the changing table and bassinet are tan-ish. I don't use lighting mods, so these are the colors in the game. Kind of blah if you ask me. The rocking chair that comes with the kit cannot be used to rock the newborn. I haven't tried it with an infant, but that's ridiculous.

Secondly, see that blanket? This is immediately after aging the kid up because I hate newborns. It hovers in mid-air and lowers itself to the floor, but it missed the blanket the interaction put down on the floor. Fucking EA.

Thirdly, my Sim mom here tried to reach into the toy box to get the kid a toy, since the toy box said the kid hasn't learned the "reach" milestone. Fair enough, except that mom couldn't reach into the toy box for the same reason. She's an adult, why can't she reach into the toy box? I'm using the new toy box, maybe that's the problem.

In any case I sure am glad I sail the high seas for this game.

 

[Thiletonomics]

The Life & Death EP Trailer is now up:

Sadly, MAID doesn't appear to be a feature in the pack, so Justin Castro won't give this EP a "MUST BUY!"

More data-mining with Project Rene reveals that it will have Season Passes, and a user-generated content tag, which probably means that CC will be accessed through the game ala the Overwolf collaboration TS4 has, and paid options will probably exist too, similar to the Creator Kits in TS4. This also means that adding mods outside of the game may not be possible, so mods like Extreme Violence, Basemental Drugs, Wicked Whims, and Politic BS Removers probably won't be a thing in Project Rene.

Another mobile Sims spin off game, Town Stories, has been leaked. It features goyslop-ass artwork with the Temu version of Lucio that was probably AI generated, and features the ever present pronouns in CAS, although it looks like you can't make custom ones like with TS4:

 

[Polystyrene Glioblastoma]

So they're making a Life and Death expansion. I just don't see the appeal of a glorified wake. The gothic decor looks cool at least. I'd need more information.

EA needs to put more resources into fixing the 4. They really need to update the economy of the game among numerous issues that could be listed.

Nonbinary bullshit and characters that look straight out of that notorious GrubHub advertisement? Hard pass from me on City Slicker Bullshit: Soy Sims Edition.