If you want to know why they're obsessed with multiplayer games, it's because they want the game to be a live service. If it's a live service they can have recurrent user spending. Instead of you buying the game and then owning the game and having the game, they want you to have to keep paying the money for microtransactions, for pay to win mechanics, for other garbage like that
Alternatively it could be like WOW. Where you buy the game and then have to pay a monthly fee to actually play it. Then there are items on top of that which you can buy. I really hope that's not the way it's going
I wouldn’t mind having a multiplayer OPTION, but if it’s required I wouldn’t buy it. I play the sims as an introvert because I don’t want to speak to a single person for 8-48 hours. Mandatory multiplayer would ruin it, however if you had the option to turn it on and had randomly people controlling other sims in your world that could be really fun and stir up awesome drama. But I think it needs to be an option if it’s included for sure.
Could be cool to go in an Animal Crossing direction where you decide if and when people come to visit and they have to be your friends, not just some random person.
@@tarynhulse854 like they attempted with the sims 3! But actually go through with it this time instead of your sims becoming an NPC when they leave for your friend’s town
The EA execs don't know and don't care to know the Sims audience. That's why they keep forcing the multi-player issue even after it failed spectacularly. It's just so self sabotaging to me.
My fundamental problem is that they consistently release unfinished games and charge an obscene amount of money for them. I’m not going to pay fkn $80 for a half a game that maybe will get fixed slowly over the course of 7+ years.
Maybe that's why ts5 is so long coming maybe it will be complete a game at launch. (when i say complete i mean playable and enjoyable as a base game. )
You're right. It's a good game to play now with several packs but the TS3 base game is packed full of so much more. It's sad looking back on how much we lost especially with all this in mind.
@@Jess-nc4oy I think the reason ts5 is taking so long is because it is expensive to make a whole new game, and some execs have realized 'why make a new game when people are still buying the dlc for ts4?' I think thats why kit's happened as well. They are trying to milk the game dry before they even think of releasing another one.
Yeah I mean at the very least she’s definitely using skills like research, analysis, and presentation of findings which I’m sure where definitely developed during a History degree. I did Art so it’s honestly a guess but I definitely think she uses her degree 🙌🏻
And stop lying!! Lmao I knew the “Lower-End Systems” rhetoric was complete bull when they announced that they were stopping supporting 32-bit machines and releasing the TS4 Legacy Edition. Lmao And dont even get me started on Batuu and Lindsay (whose been working on the Sims since TS2) saying it was her idea :/ Poor developers man… having to take the brunt of criticism because theyre basically FORCED to lie perhaps due to contractual obligations…. Pfft
i think if it was done right, and optional, it actually could work. online is different now, people might like it more. the thing is do we trust ea to do it right?
@@micahcook2408 Erm, hold on a sec here. 32-bit systems don't have a lot to do with low-end systems. There were some seriously beefed up 32-bit systems back in the day. And a 64-bit system means nothing with a shitty CPU and GPU. Dropping support for 32-bit was a necessary decision, as the bloody thing was already outdated in the year 2000 and only the cheapest PCs still included 32-bit processors by 2014. Back in the day, after the system requirements for Sims 4 were announced, I did some support on a forum, trying to help people judge whether or not their PCs could handle the game and trust me when I say that, yes, the vast majority of the Sims playerbase is running this game on literal bricks and they absolutely had to cater to them and downgrade the game's demands if they didn't want to alienate about 70% of their playerbase. I am talking GPUs and CPUs from the early naughties here. Those weren't lies but the bitter truth. The Sims has always and will always be a game that is mostly played by non-tech-savvy casual players.
@@DerLetzteMonarch of course, you’re correct but im specifically talking about the team saying why the reason TS4 was released the way it was, with as little content as possible (no pools, no cars, the neighborhood loading screens, no toddlers, etc.), was because of lower end systems. When in all actuality Sims 2 and 3 (which 3 had the issue of the game being unoptimized - people still run into issues of crashing, not loading, lag, even on higher end systems, to this day if they do nothing to combat it) had more things in the game on release with worse technology than 4 at the time.
EA might actually go under pretty soon bc if the sims 5 is a flop, on top of their other failing franchises like Madden, I don’t see how they’d survive.
Which Sims team? Sims 1, 2, 3, 4? Or do you mean the Sim City teams? Every game has a different team. It's not the same exact people working on every game. They also don't make a lot of the bigger decisions that impact the actual games after release, those kinds of decisions come from the bosses that don't actually make the game itself. Publishers and investors often have more of a say than the team that actually works on the game. Not giving individual credit is how corporations get customers to blame developers for things beyond their control. The hundreds to thousands of people that work hard to make the various sims games playable didn't "forget their own history" because they're not all the same people. SimCity released in 1989, The Sims released in 2000...yes, things will change over the course of 30 years. It's not the fault of the teams themselves. Don't blame the sims teams for decisions beyond their control.
@@shannon9009 I'm not naive, I know the people who spend hours everyday making the game care about the game. And I know all the shortcomings and disappointment of the Sims 4 comes from the greedy corporation that is EA, not the developers. Still there's corporate EA people who oversee the Sims 4 who probably don't care about it and I think they could use a couple lessons
@@shannon9009 Remember how simgurugrant flat out lied and denied that Sims 2 or 3 ever had 3 EPs released in the same year, for some odd reason. Having said that, making the simgurus create social media accounts and interact directly with the public was a move of evil genius by EA PR. They end up taking flack for decisions made by anonymous C Suiters
Even if you want to give EA a pass for this, "trying to save the game," EA still spent over SEVEN YEARS bloating the game with recycled objects and animations instead of adding to the UI and AI to make the SIMS have more purpose than a glorified digital Barbie doll. It's shallow! It's not a social experiment, it's not a "Life Simulation."
@@D0MiN0ChAn Me before playing games:" Why would anyone pay money for digital images you can't touch?" Me after The Sims 4: "Why the hell did I spend over $1000?"
@@itscyberqueen13 honestly, CC makers are out here doing the most. Add-on packs, that don't require the pack are so amazing, its like finding a diamond in a bag of gravel.
@@D0MiN0ChAn THIS! Sims 4 is literally reusing all the content from previous games, yet EA (I guess) invented new labels and have it at higher prices. It's so ridiculous to have a gamepack cost the same as previous expansion packs, and current sims 4 expansions being this high price for no reason. I also have no idea who comes up with how they end up diving the content, e.x. Seasons should have been a game pack - with the amount of content their adding to the gameplay, but not as much to build-and-buy, compared to Parenthood for example. Also, the fact it took them so long to add Seasons and how badly community was asking for that, they literally just banked off of us. I think even back in 2016 people were saying it's better to wait for sales before you buy anything for Sims 4. Now, it's a must to either wait for sale or go for the bundle with 3 things in it. And even with that game play is just boring
I feel that The Sims is like playing "dolls" for grown ups. The only multiplayer type option I feel comfortable with is watching lets play on TH-cam. I'd really rather stay in my cozy safe introverted world & not have strangers interfering on my goal of reaching level 10 of knitting, doing manicures & owning 7 cats
I would like if it was like animal crossing and I could go visit my friend our send them an email/postcard but that's it. There's a mod that makes sims 4 multiplayer and it seems fun but it's an add-on not the main thing
@@dia.96 They kinda did that in the Sims 3, you could send gifts to friends with an account on the community website or something. No one used the feature that I know of.
@@Noblewynter I remember that and did actually send gifts. But I only got 1 back xD You could also host a friend as an entertainer or something. But it never really worked in my game.
Mandatory Multiplayer for The Sims will effectively kill the franchise. Multiplayer in games invites trolling and hacking, so right off the bat the idea of trying to get some peace in playing a life simulation game and having to deal with annoying ppl messing around with your storylines is not enjoyable to me. Secondly, this would mean EA will make the game even more "kid-friendly". They've already done away with some of the more risque elements from past Sims games & they'd more than likely remove the ability to woohoo because that would be extremely inappropriate to have kid players interacting with that kind of feature in multiplayer with strangers online. And then we have to talk about how this would probably be a game that doesn't allow mods or CC. Because how could your character show up on another person's lot wearing CC that that other person doesn't have saved to their computer? Would it auto replace the way CC furniture does when you download a CC lot from the gallery? This is a whole mess. I hope they don't do it.
I really miss the dark tone of the earlier sims games, and the more adult themes. I don't want to see the franchise dumbed down and disneyfied even more for a younger audience.
@@Ice.muffin i'm actually all about happy-go-lucky, it's simple, it's relaxing, it's lovely. Seeing my sims 4 family having a good time makes my day Idk why i commented this i just wanted to say it ig
@@Qwerty-wk3jy I think they should have the options available to play both happy-go-lucky style and more adult/dark style. More choices in terms of playstyle are always good bc every player is different and may prefer to play in different ways.
my argument against "it's for low end specs" is,, sims 4 runs horrendously on low end computers. I had to wait like 10 real life minutes for my sims to go to school while the whole game freezed, city living is a foggy void on lowest settings. plus later expansion packs get more and more demanding. they say create a style was removed because it's too demanding on low end systems, but then they added it for cats and dogs anyway? idk I don't buy it
The sims 4 wouldn't run at all on my old laptop when I first got it, ended up buying a new laptop because of it but somehow the sims 3 ran perfectly fine on my old laptop including 2 dlc
Honestly. Plus beginner gaming PCs are becoming way more affordable as the years go on, many people buy PCs solely to play the sims. EA is just looking for a cop out. But for those who can’t afford to, they’re stuck with only a couple of expansions and a crap ton of simulation lag.
I have a pretty good pc that's about a year old and have major troubles with Sims 4. I have all the Sims 4 packs to Snowy Escape (except Batuu and RoM), very few mods (Better Build/Buy, UI cheats, More Cas Columns) and the game consistently crashes my whole pc if I have anything else (Chrome, Spotify) open at the same time. I don't even play in live mode, just building. Sims 3 runs way better for me even with all the packs, a lot of store content, and mods and cc. Last year I was able to open both Sims games with Chrome at the same time, with more mods in Sims 4 than I have currently, and could barely rotate the camera in Sims 4 because of how much it struggled, while Sims 3 was super smooth (this was even before the smooth patch!).
Working in coorporate, I can just imagine how the developers came in one Monday and the management went 'Good morning, we're going to need a completely new game by the end of the week'.
I’m always so proud when Cities: Skylines gets mentioned as the one who destroyed EA’s chokehold on those types of games. One of the creators is my second cousin, and her success has inspired me on my path to game graphics development.
Cities Skylines was of course published by Paradox, and in 2019 Paradox opened a new Studio headed up by Rob Humble, who made Second Life, Sims 2, and Sims 3. My hope is that they pull another Cities Skylines and show EA how the life-sim genre is done.
I LOVED Skylines when it released but I can't go back to it now because there's a Sims level of DLC :( fantastic achievement though, so so much better than Simcity reboot
I have no basis for this, but it feels like multiplayer makes it easier for micro-transaction, especially with younger players. Like peer pressure, if all your friends' sims are wearing an expensive skin ofc you're gonna want it too. Or loot boxes and shit. And with the sims 4 it feels like ea are reaching for a younger audience. I have been binge-playing the sims 3 last couple of days and omg it's so fun! Why i ever played sims 4 is beyond me bc that game literally killed my passion for sims, but it's so nice getting back into it! I just wish i still had all the sims 2 games!
There's also an additional problem within Maxis, and that is how ridiculously top-heavy they are. They have too many on the top versus the actual team size. Sims 4 already has a smaller team by default than Sims 3 had. And now that they are working on 2 big projects additionally, plus all the staff that left or got moved to another project, it's even more clear why they are focusing so much on Kits. They seemingly do not have the employee numbers to make actual substantial packs (heck, even by Kit standards, we only got a SINGLE gameplay one)
Wow, this reminds me of the development disaster that plagued Sonic 06 back then, one half of Sonic Team devs working on Sonic 06 and the other half working on Secret Rings, resulting in lack of manpower to make either game with 06 being the primary victim of that practice
@@elliotgibsonroberts6672 or proportions!? Teens can have pretty different proportions compared to adults. Multiple different proportions might be too much to ask, but at least a slight height and proportions difference would be in order. They have proven that they know how to do it with toddlers and kids.
It makes sense that elders are just adult sims because well they're just older. But WHY teens have the same proportions and height as adults just doesn't make sense to me. Even acne was only available with one of the expansion packs.
fr, sims 4 is a game for the weird introverted quiet kids in the corner of the classroom. We need our escapism where we just do whatever we want in our own little virtual world.
Rotating it so so gently just waiting for the square to turn green and SLAMMING the click button before it turns red and you can't set down the lot again
There's something I don't understand: So all the complains that people have on The Sims 4 basically originates from the fact that originally was supposed to be an entirely different game, and as a result of that, they had to accomodate that game and fix it in order to become the next "The Sims" game. And now, they're trying to do the same thing once more, by transforming the next game into an multiplayer game... In that case, Paralives or other similar game will become the next City Skylines and nobody would talk about The Sims 5.
This really explains why some of the base game objects look so cartoony/out of place/like a completely different art style. They were literally designed for a different game 🤯
@@Ice.muffin if you place some of the items that were in the pictures featured in the video, and place it beside items features in packs you’ll really see the difference
The entire first half of this video was me pointing at the screen going YES! Those who came into the franchise in the Sims 4 and had no experience with Sims 3 era don't know about all the rumors and leaks about Sims 4 being online, and the utter shit show wave of anger from the community. When that Sim City game came out, people were so pissed off. It was just depressing. The the Sims 4 rumors hit and people were just done with EA and their bullshit. Community members wrote letters, there we campaigns. It was a heated mess. EA knew they had pissed off the community and they backpeddled so hard, and thats how we got The Sims 4.
Not that TS4 was any better received as a result. I remember watching some OG Sims let's players struggle to make any long form content because the base game was feckin' empty and they basically had nothing to do with their sims. Add to that the non-existence of toddlers and any legacy-style series was basically doomed from the get-go. I still feel like Sims 4 LPs don't hold up as well as compared to TS2 or TS3, just because there's way less meaningful family gameplay. An absolute mess.
@@D0MiN0ChAn litellary, there are barely any long running series in Sims 4 and most content around this game is either a simple challange, a mod review, or building.
@@D0MiN0ChAn I remember I used to love bingeing those long TS3 let plays with like 40 videos in a playlist. When TS4 came out it felt like those types of videos had disappeared. It's a shame really. I remember watching World Adventures LPs and being amazed by the sheer amount of content they put into a single expansion pack. I still play the sims 3 and have fun doing so, plus it's way cheaper than TS4 😅
It is unfortunate for fans of the sims that so many people were willing to pay for all these trash packs for Sims 4...Cause that just shows they can charge absurd amounts for barely anything.
Coming from a AAA game dev: I honestly believe they're working on a new sims game, mainly because when companies cut down on budget and resources for one game it usually means they're working on something else. And given what they're doing on Sims 4 right now I would believe that they have a much smaller team on Sims 4 right now than what they used to have..
Yeah, I agree, there was barely any stuff packs or expansion packs compared to previous years. I wonder if they'll release sims 5 after paralives or before.
Why is EA pushing multiplayer so much when in the last decade or more it hasn’t worked, like why aren’t they learning, why are they seeing a failure twice over with SimCity and the pre-sims 4 version of the game. They keep proving themselves as a company that have their own ideas that they insist on, that they hang onto like a dog with a bone, without realising that this same stuff hasn’t worked and they just don’t listen to their customer base. Everyone is either against it or only wants it if there is still the option to not have to play multiplayer. How is that not enough for them to be like “huh, maybe we are wrong, we need to stop forcing this idea”. I just get the vibe from EA that is about what they want to do, they don’t listen and they just can’t admit where they are failing.
yea multiplayer games make a lot of money for them. and sims fans are largely not interested in multiplayer games. hence why they are failing. but I'd love it if they sold sims and other Maxis properties.
@@nininini035 yes that makes sense, however they have managed to split up content to much with the Sims 4 to make plenty of money, why not keep doing something that is working (I know it’s not ideal for customers but they don’t care). They also aren’t going to make a lot of money with a multiplayer if most players hate it and don’t use it.
Long term wise, multi-player games mean way more profit than solo game (greatest examples would be gta 5 and fortnite). The game can keep running for ages, with updates here and there, endless choice for microtransactions, and since the charm is in connecting with other players, there would be no need to really invest in immense amount of features to keep players entertained. But of course there's a very low chance for it to ever work with the sims, unless it's added as an option (like how tons of games give their solo titles from very loved franchises an online game they can jump in after completing the main story). However sadly the higher-ups who make these decisions do not play games. They're businessmen who observe trends, what has been generating the most profit/has the potential of doing so. So with multiplayer being even more prevalent now than it was nearly a decade ago, they're never gonna give the idea up...
this video explains why the sims 4 would have performance issues if we had open world etc, because it's not built to function as a main sims game. it's built on the same engine as sim city because it was supposed to be an online game, unlike the sims 3 which was built around its own engine, which is why (at least as the basegame) it could handle being a fully fleshed out world in the way the sims 4 can't. obviously with the timescale they had for project olympus, they didn't have time to start over with a new game once the online game was scrapped, but it really makes you think about what we could've had if the sims 4 was created as an offline game from the get-go.
I feel like it's important to remember that there's a difference between developers and management, and management loves to screw over developers I don't think the developers of Sims 4 are lazy or that they don't care, they clearly do care, the issue is that the gaming industry actively hates game developers and makes their jobs as difficult as possible There are so many processes and approval processes that they have to go through just to get the absolute tiniest of features into a game I wish that the Sims 4 was better, but I understand that the team were forced to work with way less time and resources than they needed to turn Olympus into a proper Sims 4, and now they have to work with that broken base and try to get it as close as they can to what players want, which probably isn't always possible Also, I doubt that EA would actually try to make Sims 5 fully online, they are a business and if they didn't learn from SimCity then they are going to be knowingly signing themselves up for failure, which I don't think they want to do. Most of the "evidence" at Sims 5 will be online is completely baseless speculation that comes from a misunderstanding of terms used in extremely vague job descriptions, Sims 4 itself already has implemented online features-The Gallery! You need to be able to connect to the internet to download updates and Sims Deliveries! The Gallery is a very popular feature that it would make sense to bring to a potential Sims 5, and the game would have to be able to connect to the internet to be able to be updated. And even if there was a multiplayer element, like I said, they learned from SimCity, it would most likely be an optional mode in addition to the main single player gameplay. Would would probably be similar to Animal Crossing's online multiplayer, where you can invite friends and play in a world together.
I would also hope that they wouldn’t make sims 5 fully online but EA likes to screw companies over. They did that with BioWare by having a mmo gaming fully knowing that the fan base was into their solo RPGs and when Andromeda tanked and Mass Effect update did extremely well, only then did they learn to respect their audience. So I guess we’ll only know with time.
@@8ri1 I just feel like they already learned from simcity, so it would just be silly for them to try again without making massive adjustments to the plan (like doing an animal crossing style multiplayer instead of fully online)
My issue to is legal business jargon… I wish developers could speak honestly about the project sometimes because it creates a heap of drama in their communities when so much of the setbacks/issues are thrown onto the developers. Like for two examples, 1) the EA and Disney partnership they’ve had since 2013 (hence why there has been Star Wars content in the game since its initial release) and how Lindsay (Head Developer) said it was her idea but imo, personally, I just feel like she wouldn’t be completely on board with making a game that is just an online advertisement for the Disney Attraction and have no Sims-World integration (aliens are costumes, Kylo Ren and Rey are not marriable/woohoo-able/etc., Batuu isnt inhabitable without cheats, etc.), and 2) The “Low System Requirement” lie imo because EA stopped supporting 32-bit computers and released TS4 Legacy edition for lower end computers, not to mention, how people with even higher end systems complain about Simulation Lag, Bugs, etc. It may never happen, but I just need these industries and companies to have more transparency in the World. Would save a lot of headache and people blaming the frontmen when there are people behind the scenes in control of mostly everything lmao
I still remember how absolutely shocked I was watching the first official Sims 4 trailer at Gamescom 2014. I felt so betrayed; I didn't vibe with the cartoony look at all. If they hadn't offered the base game for free all these years ago, I still probably wouldn't be playing TS4 at all. Remember the deluxe version of the game for 80 bucks? Yikes. And for what? For an absolutely empty shell of a game, with so many of the iconic sim staples like ghosts, aliens, pools (!?) and toddlers missing completely. And the hyped up emotion system is still messing so much with my sims' AI. It's like they didn't even know what they wanted this game to be, and you can definitely feel that. Sure, the game has come a long way since being absolutely *empty* af. TS4 still isn't my favorite by a landslide, to be perfectly honest, but at least they're actively trying to fix up the rough patches. Just goes to show that games built on a shoddy foundation will never be as good as the ones who had put a lot more care (and time) into them. I've completely given up hope for what The Sims 5 could even bring to the table other than a forced online multiplayer and lots of microtransactions. It's EA after all, and their recent track record with so many of their beloved and iconic game franchises has been absolutely disgraceful.
I remember trying it out on a friend's PC back in 2014/15 and I literally haven't touched this game until it was on sale just recently for like $5 it was a complete tragedy. It was so bleak, the portraits of the sims were just basically T posing and the world map was just some black and white bullshit 🤢🤢🤢 it genuinely felt like they just released some demo beta version of a game. I must admit thought that right now it really feels like a finished game. If it released like this it probably could have avoided the horrible reputation it has now, although this is still honestly just a dead uninspired husk of a game. I use it only to make sims, I hope this franchise dies at this point... sims 4 hit me way too deep, I hope Paralifes or whatever else takes over.
i made the dumb decision of spending $80 on the premium edition when it came out cus i was 11.. but even at that age i was severely disappointed. i remember i would quit the game after 30 minutes of gameplay because it was so boring, and that still holds true today.
@@Minniemooz I mean, I've gotten used to it over the years, but back then after its first reveal I felt like I was in the twilight zone. It was such an abrupt change of style to what we were used before; paired with the lack of basically everything else, it was completely incomprehensible to me 😅
There's a few leaked videos (even a promotional one0 from Olympus that clearly shows that the game was supposed to be multiplayer (I sent them to your email, Jesse, so feel free to check them or list here), so they really had to remove all the online aspects, which would be the main selling point, and come up with a new one, hence were questionable "smarter sims" and "meaningful emotions" selling points - we're not buying them because they just had to come up with something to replace this huge multiplayer feature. Also it explains why we didn't get a color wheel - I saw someone explain that basically allowing all sorts of colors and textures would be (at least back then) quite difficult for an online game because basically you have to store texture variations from other people's game even if you don't use them.
While it's true that this is likely the reason why Olympus didn't have a colour wheel to begin with, working with textures in that way is still a major struggle for computers to this day. A game currently being created could probably pull it off without the major hitches we know from Sims 3's CASt. But back pre-2014, I think Sims 4 would have struggled with those same exact issues, even if they had taken the time to rework the game to feature a colour wheel. So ultimately, even trying would have been a major waste of time and resources, I think. Especially considering how there were many other, much more essential features, they needed to integrate as Olympus became Sims 4.
Yes, please leave us alone! Part of my reason for getting into Sims in the first place was that it didn't require a bunch of friends, like so many others.
True, makes me wonder if EA has any idea who Sims players are. The people they're trying to target now are not interested in Sims games but are the ones who spend tons on microtransactions... Greed has already killed SimCity, tf are they trying to do now?
Also, I enjoy NOT needing to be on wifi all the time to play. As someone who works in an environmental field I am often places where I don't always have internet access
Games that were originally released as single player games rarely ever work well as multiplayer. Another example of this (other than the Sims Olympus) is the Fallout series. Fallout 76, similarly to the Sims 4 was missing a TON of stuff on launch (mainly NPCs) because they focused mainly on multiplayer and less on what made the games great, which are the quirky NPCs, the story, the world, and environmental storytelling. All of these were added AFTER launch, but much like the Sims 4, this left a very bad taste in many people's mouth's. EA and Bethesda alike seem to be more concerned with money than releasing a good quality game that will keep the fans engaged and excited for future installments.
Honestly, I don't blame them for wanting to make it run well for everyone but it'd be amazing if they made a Sims game that was like Skyrim or Fallout, in that, it fully leans into open world, graphics, and features, it'd only run on a gaming computer probably but it'd have everything right off the bat. Unrealistic, I know, but it's nice to imagine.
Yeah that’s why nothing works to fix sims personalities. And the traits have no real impact. They originally weren’t meant to have personalities because it was supposed to be you talking to another real person. Sims 4 was crafted out of the leftovers from Olympus. But when you strip out all the multiplayer things there aren’t many leftovers to work with. It’s just visuals and aesthetics with not much going on below the surface. They are making improvements but none of them add much true depth. Every improvement is interesting for like a week but then it’s lost it’s interestingness and the game hasn’t really changed.
It might be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't want the Sims to be online. I also don't really want a fully open world anymore, either. I think open neighborhoods would be much better than what we have now in Sims 4. Open neighborhoods would definitely help players with older or slower systems but it would give the player a better sense of being in the world. It's so irritating when you see Sims interacting with things on the next lot but your Sims can't because they aren't loaded into that lot...then when you load into that lot, no one's there.
I dont think thats an unpopular opinion. Like I enjoy the idea of the multiplayer mod as much as the next person, but its a closed multiplayer. And not constant
I don’t want open world neither. Open neighborhood sounds so much better to me. I haven’t played sims 3 but, someone said that once your sims moved they forget about the friends they made. And that’s not realistic. I think online sims should be an option. Like you can play it offline but, if you want to play online with a friend you can do it too. Having different options for different playing styles sounds good to me.
@@moondivine2288 the thing about the sims 3 is, the neighborhoods are so big that you can't visit other ones. You can move out but there is no visiting, so even if your sim remembered their friends, they have no way of talking to them. It does such, but I get why they did it because ts3 was already slow from the start so I couldn't imagine it with multiple large neighborhoods running in the background.
open neighborhoods seems like it Would Work with sims 4 as well considering a) the worlds are separated into neighborhoods anyway and b) you could easily go from the library to the gym or whatever you want to do since those, in base game at least (idk abt other worlds), are all in the same neighborhood
@@moondivine2288 I agree about Open Neighborhood versus Open World but I feel the need to explain how Sims 3 worked. If your family moved lots within their original world then it was fine, they would remember everyone they knew, but moving between worlds in Sims 3 was like switching planets. It's not the same as moving between towns in Sims 4, which is like taking an airplane instead of a one-way spaceship. Sims 3 had other countries; France, Egypt, and China, so your Sims could have long distance relationships and travel without inherently forgetting everyone, but those countries were like the towns in Sims 4 (except massive and you had to pay to travel there; the most similar example would be Selvadorada from Jungle Adventure; the spiritual descendant of World Adventures.) What player was doing when they moved the family across worlds was making a copy of the family and placing them into the Library/Gallery of Sims 4 so you could immediately put them into a New Save File. They weren't the exact same people and those townies might not exist in that new world, so it deleted every relationship outside of the family relationships. It was a Save transplant, so while it might not be realistic, it only happened in that scenario.
Are we surprised 🤣 half the packs are recycled in my opinions and they still charge for them . I feel like they keep updating the base game because they’re noticing what other developers are doing and don’t want to lose their audience.
@@RionAgrias and that’s factual 👌they should focus on making the sims 5 with everything right (not perfect) from the start and stop charging with every single little things that the modders have already been providing us and some 🤷♀️
Yea recycled and such tiny amounts of items per for an insane price and the people willing to shill out the 1000 dollars for trash SIms 4 packs basically means an end to any decent Sims games.@@nafola7617
If they’re dead set on making the sims 5 multiplayer, I agree it needs to be optional. I have no idea how you’d even make it multiplayer. It’s not like animal crossing like you mentioned where you’re actively controlling your main character. Instead in the sims I feel like you take on the role more of a god watching your sims carry out their lives. I’m not really sure how that would work with more than one person involved.
Pantheon competing to make everyone's life miserable. There you are directing a Sim to be heroically athletic and someone else directs them to cook Poptarts until they burn to death.
Split-screen multiplayer on console (for at least one of the games pre-Sims-4, I can't remember what I played in multiplayer mode with my kid sis eons ago) was all right, though if one person paused the game, the other person had to sit and wait. I'm going to guess multiplayer doesn't let you pause, or if one person is set as the owner of the house, they have control of stuff like that. I don't remember if both of us could edit the house either.
@@tirsden it really just doesnt owrk. the only MP that could work is perhaps Animal Crossing style. But having many people exist in the same space in a Simulation like the Sims doesnt work at all.
I never played the sims 3. But the sims 2 was far superior in terms of animation and logic. It was harder and there were consequences to failing that you bad to fight to bring yourself back from. From what ive seen of the sims 3, it built on that with animation and logic. The sims 4 should have built on the sims 3 maybe not the super open world, it did cause alot of problems which is why i didnt play it i only had a laptop, but i liked the story progression of the people around the sim. Sims 4 should have launched with (among the obvious) seasons, cars, story progression, more worlds, and larger maps where you can place your own lots, cars, seasons, Get to work, dine out, get together, pets, laundry day stuff, the vacuums, apartments, university, island living, parenthood, bowling night stuff, aliens, vampires, werewolves, and witches from day one. That should have been the foundation. And then they should built everything else in top of that. The sims 4 base game could have been a masterpiece. Tiny living and eco lifestyle should have been one pack. Knitting and cottage living should have been a single pack, kids stuff and toddler stuff should have been one pack. Memories on top of the traits and the sims 2's "horrorscope personalities would have been PERFECT with the mood system. No more "reminiscing about things that never happened. It would say what they were remembering and why that thing has an affect on their mood. Sentiments added to that would have improved it. The different grave stones for those who died getting everything in their aspiration. Having LIFE TIME aspirations, with the ones we have in game as MILE STONES to be completed in their aspiration that can be achieved... Yes it would have been a monster of a game base game, but what away to start and its not like they dont have the technology. Then bringing in other elements like jungle adventure, paranormal stuff, out door retreat and journey to batuu all could have been bigger and badder expansions with more to do and offer. Journey to batuu could have been a great addition with going to other planets. We can already go to sixam, being able to go to other places in the star wars universe as apart of regular sims continuity could have been perfect. Expanding on what was already there with aliens instead of making it into a theme park that you'd only go to once if at all. There were many choices made a lot of them seemed rushed to me. Lets hope sims 5 at least has alot more than the first THREE expansion, game, and stuff packs of 4.
I'm not. I started playing when it was just the Sims before Livin' Large was even released. I LOVE the Sims 4. It's everything I wanted the game to be originally, sans multiplayer, but that's neither here nor there. The Sims 3 to me was trash and a fucking mess. I'm glad they ended up reworking an "online" version of the game into the Sims 4 we know today, because it's absolutely wonderful.
@@hakudoushinumbernine Do you know how many _years_ and how expensive the game would be if it had launched with all that stuff included right off the bat? Do you even understand how game development works? That would simply not be feasible even with the Sims 5.
@@godzandheros true, but, they could have reworked old code. And also, they dont have to do it as soon as possible. They can wait another six years for them to make that game. You have a game that big and expanded at launch and you dont have to come out with an expansion, stuff, or game pack for... years.
@@hakudoushinumbernine But you're forgetting about cost. It's going to be close to a $500 base game if you factor in all the things you listed they're going to have to develop to give you at launch. That's not a good business model at all.
I really wish they had scrapped Olympus completely, delayed the release for a number of years, remade the game from scratch, then released Sims 4. Sims 4 has gotten better but it still can't live up to its full potential because of Olympus. It will forever have 'so much potential, if only'. And what's funny is how they tried to sell us on The Sims 4, taking about how they're "building an incredibly strong foundation that is capable of fulfilling every one of your desires in the years to come." I hope they do better with Sims 5 but honestly I don't trust them to do multiplayer in The Sims and not have single player suffer somehow. I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but I don't trust EA and Maxis to do it. Even without multiplayer or minimal traces of it, look at the state of and issues with Sims 2 and 3. They might be better off hiring more people to make two separate Sims games and making one multiplayer and the other single player but I'd still be concerned with the state they'd both end in. That description of Olympus is about how I imagined Sims multiplayer though.
I mean if the game is so bad on release that our desires are to have the basics, toddlers and pools for example, they’ve made it easy for themselves to fulfil our desires 😂
I agree with the first paragraph. Us Sims fans will have an absolutely great game to stay with (Sims 3) while waiting for Sims 4 without a complaint. But now, with the amount of people not having it with what Sims 4 turned out to be, the community will probably be more impatient for Sims 5 causing the game to be rushed and, again, incomplete, causing the cycle to restart. I feel like there are more people hyped and waiting for Paralives to come out than Sims 5. Also, looking at comments under Paralives videos, you can really see how much EA dissapointed us lowered our expectations to the point that we get excited about things like height, taking shoes off when going indoors, sitting on counters and drawers, etc. It's kinda sad to see.
I don't understand why people still want the SIms 4 to go on and do not talk about fixing the actual game. No expansion pack or dlc will fix the base game. I'm ready to move on.
Yup. I'm ready to even wait another 10 years before the next Sims comes out. EA has gotten enough of my money at this point and they've proven that they simply can't be trusted. The good ol' times of triple A gaming are definitely over. Indie games is where it's at.
Exactly, every expansion pack will have the same empty set-dressed worlds (no matter how pretty) and the overall mechanics of the game are just boring, whenever they tried to add more depth the engine seems to be unable to handle it resulting in broken features and glitches. Don’t get me wrong, I love building and CAS in the Sims 4 and I do play in live mode time and time again, but the latter always disappoints
Yea I don't understand if anyone is still hopeful for the Sims series...As them being able to make good money off of little work means they will do it repeatedly.
I'm starting to think most of the bugs and bloat and slow release of features of this game are because it's made on a multiplayer game's corpse effectively. The devs probably have to do a shit ton of extra work if the engine they're using was made for multiplayer. Effectively the Sims 4 is the reverse of Fallout 76. Fallout 76 was a multiplayer game made using a singleplayer game's engine, while the Sims 4 is a singleplayer game using a multiplayer game's engine. I suspect they got inspired by Second Life and the whole rise of MMOs and changed last minute.
i think the fact that the sims 4 was made out of unwanted scraps of a forgotten game really highlights the effort and care (or lackthereof) that was put into the sims 4
As someone who's been playing the sims since the year 2000, I really hope they don't make TS5 multiplayer. That would be the biggest disappointment so far (imo). The sims community have very different play-styles and that's what's cool about this game, you can have options. Instead they should improve the gallery bc it's always been kinda broken. There's a lot they can do to improve this function and make it work better. There are so many details of the game they should also be prioritizing. The thought they could scrap it all and make it multiplayer is so upsetting tbh.
Yeah, I don't get why they are so dead set on having more reasons to not program personality and gameplay depth. Of course online mannequins helps with that. 🤢 But how about some real innovation, like procedural animations, so that we can get different heights and more varied animations? Or an improvement on the wants and fears system? Or an improved flexible open world?
GREAT INFO! One of my concerns w multiplayer is timing: I like the option to customize lifespans (short, normal, long) and I'd like to see us get back to adjusting lifespans in more detail, not syncing everyone up for multiplayer.
Yeah one question I had by the end of this video is "will aging be off or what?" Unless I'm playing a challenge game, I always have aging off for played households in Sims 4.
I’m also wondering what would happen with the game speeds. Being able to go at faster speeds have always been a fundamental part of the game, but how are you going to do that in multiplayer?
Forgot multiplayer for one of the only solo games left. Bring back lore! And interesting story progression! Bring in being able to see your sims history and have that be more diverse. Bring in placing your house by the waterfall because it’s atmospheric. Multiplayer would be like being lost in a book and someone comes along and starts trying to talk to you about it, a really stilted experience
I wouldn’t mind multiplayer as long as it’s just an option. Online should never impact the game itself. But I’d low key love to be able to live in a neighborhood with a few of my friends in The Sims
This is what I’ve been saying, the sims was rushed at release hence the many missing features and bad builds(although the EA builds are still bad) and the claim that the game was trying to be “ minimalistic” when they just didn’t build the game to be The Sims 4.
Yeah, I didn't realize how bad the builds can be until I started watching lilsimsie. One of the houses in Realm of Magic has stairs in the back but no backdoor so the stairs lead just to a wall. Some of the roof colors don't match too and some lots (across packs) have no toilets included. A lot of playtesting clearly didn't happen.
I was one of them kids beggging for sims 3 and then the sims 4 came out and my mom thought "same shit" and bought it for me on release....the greyscale still haunts my dreams
EA might actually go under pretty soon bc if the sims 5 is a flop, on top of their other failing franchises like Madden, I don’t see how they’d survive. I’d feel bad for the developers if that happens tho bc I truly believe its the company that’s holding them back and forcing them to cut corners and make as much money for as minimal effort possible EA as a company has a history of doing whatever they want, regardless of their consumer’s feedback. They weren’t always like this but 😕. That’s why we’ve gotta make their pockets hurt to have our voices heard.
Exactly this, I have heard horror stories online from former EA employees, the current ones definitely can't say anything but at least we got to know how it's really like behind the scenes (even the former ones probably weren't supposed to reveal the working conditions). I hope the sims team and others EA devs are treated better now, and that EA holds back from interfering with the direction of the game after the entire simcity debacle. If they don't care about making a good game or their employees' creative needs, they should at least care about the franchise being successful/being a cash cow and in order for them to do that they need the consumers to actually like their product
If EA is so obsessed with bringing in a multiplayer aspect to the sims, I think they should bring it into game packs like Strangerville that is already a collaborative game where you need to work with npcs anyway or even Jungle adventure.
I like to imagine that the incredibly long lifespan of the sims 4 is because the teams are putting in a ton of work on sims 5 and trying to buy as much time as possible. So part of the game refreshes, stupid kits, and constant content updates is just to draw out the lifespan of the game as long as possible to leave more development time for ts5. And I know it's probably a huge reach to assume that, but I will live in my delusion if I want to
Delusional take,it is EA and they were able to take a ton of money from people....Up to 1,000 per.... They won't be doing something like that if they can.,.Even if the devs themselves wanted to put love and care in the game...They still work under someone and that with the landscape of current gaming showcases that EA will try and do the same with any newer rendition.
It also makes sense that we had such little story progression until very recently because if sims 4 was multiplayer, other players would be driving those stories along your household. This argument would work for why there aren’t many consequences in the s4 because you wouldn’t want a big event with a certain player that would disrupt another player. Okay I’ll take the tin foil hat off now
I will never understand why EA ever thought this was a great idea. If this was never meant to be a main game, what was their goal then? Why didn't they start work on a main Sims game when TS3 released in 2009? What were they going to do, when this side game failed? They absolutely had enough time to make a great game instead of this weird half game we got with 4, that didn't even have family trees at release. 🤨 Also can we stop saying that the Sims team does their best to improve the Sims game. As if that's a great excuse for the bad updates we get, like the useless story progression, all the forgotten features and broken ones, like restaurants and many more. As a consumer I don't really care who is hired to create what EA wants for this game. The Sims "team" itself has no freedom to decide what route the game takes. Maxis is just a shell. The workers don't get enough time, resources and bad direction, by EA on top of that. It's not their fault the game is bad, and they try their best. But it doesn't matter if they try hard to fight the big bad EA, because the game is still an expensive mess, and uses the worst consumer practices EA can get away with. + Saying the team does their best, gives EA some leeway in a way, because through that it sounds like the game is being improved massively and everyone is trying really hard, while it's just not. 😔 Great video none the less 🤗
Exactly, the game is the way it is because of EA. And it's not in their best interest to give customers a complete game, beacuse DLC is extremely profitable and much cheaper to make (especially kits, but really all packs at this point an indie developer could pull off). Having an old game go on forever while adding many tiny but overpriced pieces of content is all about money. It's perfect for them if we like a game enough to wish for a complete version, but never feel satisfied. Have players hope they will finally stop getting bored if only they buy this one more pack and so on, pretty much. Jobs at EA are very popular, those chosen few to be hired are good at their job. But what can they (the vast majority) do about the direction, time and budget given..? EA will want to impress and keep investors, which means higher and higher profit. Therefore I think it's highly unlikely they would ever give a sims game the resources required to make it a great game at launch or maybe ever. It will likely get worse, not better. The day a sims game would demand more resources instead of less, is the day they kill off the franchise and find other more profitable projects (wish I was wrong, though). However right now, TS4 is a total gold mine for them. (Sorry for poor english, not native language.)
If Windenburg was a carryover from the previous concept it would explain why the place is bigger and a little better established than later worlds. Counting community, that place has over 20 lots. Compare the 16 in Brindleton Bay and less than 15 in Sulani and Mt. Komorebi.
I've struggled a lot lately with feeling like I don't fit in anywhere and your videos help me find a little joy in my life. And then you just casually mention that you are asexual, like me, and suddenly I have tears in my eyes, because I feel kind of seen. So thank you Jessi, it means a lot.
Really interesting video. I'm a programmer (not games - boring business stuff) and re-using old code is almost a law. Almost as much as spending 4 years on a project that is suddenly scrapped overnight. If you have the basis of something lying around when you're working on a new project then it's really really common to take that as your starting place. Get a few old faces working on the same new project and it is almost inevitable that you will use the old code on the new project. This approach does have its problems though. Technology moves so fast that old code can come with limitations which a totally fresh project from a blank form doesn't have (at least for a while) If project Olympus was designed to be onlien in 2008, then it was working with REALLY OLD tech! That is going to present you with big problems when you try to use new ways of handling data and new UI. If this stuff is baked into the game engine, then it's no wonder they can't get basic stuff like building and character behaviour working right. As for Sims 5, my main worry is that it will be made subscription only. That's more of a trend now and it might appeal to many people who can't afford £30 now, but could manage £5 a month. That obviously costs more in the long run and is therefore more profitable. Also, if you don't keep paying then you lose everything. I only want to play solo, but I want SOME ownership of my game and something to show for the hundreds I've spent on packs.
Knowing what I do about game development and how the sims 4 runs, I think it was a combo of both project olympus and performance issues that led to stagnant lots. Lots of folks who have built pc's may not notice performance issues as much, but as someone who's primarily a laptop user and also tried sims 4 on ps4 pro and ps5 there are still SO many performance issues that just haven't been addressed. sims4 can barely run on ps4 pro, the sims 4 runs on ps5 because it is such a powerful console that brute forces it. I have to have graphic settings significantly turned down for my mid range laptop and the fans still whir like its dying trying to run the sims, along with the highest end mac book (that almost burnt my thighs lol) It seems like project olympus was just a code name? or did i misunderstand this video?? there are SO many assets you showed that are reused/upgraded for sims 4 oh my god. either way seems like sims 4 was in production hell for a while lol, Shout Out to sims team for kicking butt. Unpopular opinion: acnh multiplayer sucks. its not worth it, the loading times are waaaay too long. trying to wait for 8 friends to come over is hell. at least it works well enough for 1 friend to come over and drop something off for cataloguing
Yep, Olympus was just the code name for Sims 4. It had always been the same game from the first leak up until the final release. They just scrapped the multiplayer aspect in 2013 and rushed to make the game as solid of a singleplayer experience as possible, not that the original main feature was gone. And it's absolutely true about the game's performance. People tend to seriously underestimate what massive performance hogs simulation games are.
Yeah, I don't even try to play TS4 on my laptop anymore because it's so slow especially in CAS. Ironically, my Sims 3 can take forever to open but once things get started, it runs better than my TS4. I play TS4 mainly on console with XBOX one. It gets slow after playing for several hours, but other than that, no major issues.
Always figured one reason why so many features from other Sims games didn't make it into original Sims 4 was that it was intended to be an online game. Also explains the entire POV of the game: live forever, party hard, date date date -- family play was underwhelming. I won't buy a multiplayer/always online game ever. Trust EA not to screw it up? Hah!
I just want to say that I'm elated with how much freer you look lately♡ It really warms my heart that you are happier and hope it only gets better for you.
I'm here lobbying for them to make more spin off console games if they want to make something ~~different~~ no one wants to play the Sims as completely multiplayer. BRING BACK THE URBZ 2
the fact that there are literally plumbobs over their heads in project olympus lol... honestly this is really interesting to me, i love seeing how things are started and it almost makes me appreciate TS4 more after seeing the development hell
I remember doing an experiment where I used my disk copy to see what was missing from launch about 2 years ago. The map was that lifeless black and white, the family tree and ghosts were gone, and it’s honestly jarring how my teenage self focused more on, “this is the newest game, wow”. Than, “oh, where are the pools, and the toddler life stage”? Over the years, these were added in. But, I still feel the game might have benefited from being rewritten from the ground up. And, TS5’s planned multiplayer does not quell my concerns for a repeat.
i feel like the sims franchise keeps triyng to reinvent the wheel and bring out new technologies and features, when truly we just want a simple game with a fully fleshed out gameplay, build and buy mode and also minimal lagging/glitching. like, i don't want to play multiplayer or convert photos/videos into sims, i just want them to improve what we've had since sims 2 lol
I'd hate the Sims 5 to be multiplayer. I don't even like how story progression takes away some of my control of my game. Nevermind if someone else can just come in and mess stuff up.
We had our suspicions at launch of Sims 4 that they scrambled to change an online game after SimCity absolutely bombed so it's nice to finally have solid confirmation. But yeah, like you say that's exactly why it's so worrying that they seem to be emphasizing the multiplayer aspect again with Sims 5.
I used to watch all the sims 3 live streams the developers did and I remember they said that sims 4 was going to be multiplayer. I distinctly remember that. They later came out and said that the multiplayer aspect was going to be the gallery which confused me because then the sims 3 could also be considered multiplayer.
I'm so glad you bring the story around Cities Skylines that took over Simcity game genre, despite the fact the you're EA Games Changer. Cities Skylines and Simcity is a pretty good analogy of what might happen to The Sims, if it had a competitor.
It will have one soon, Paralives! I'm excited for Paralives to finally crush EA's monopoly and put them into a panic. The day it happens, EA might actually start putting more effort into the Sims not to lose the fandom to another game (though I believe Sims 2 and 3 fans will forever remain cause those games are definitely ones impossible to let go of).
Let's just hope it happens fast. I can't wait for some meaningful gameplay for a change. Instead of what EA considers meaningful gameplay, like my own sim telling me he found a ring and asking his own fiance through an annoying pop up, if he should propose to her and them getting instantly engaged, without any animation or logic to the whole thing. If this is what EA considers ground breaking features I don't know what is keeping this franchise alive 🤦.
idk this makes me appreciate the developers more- as someone in a very similar field to game design, we artists have very very very little say in what is happening around us. we are just told what our assignment is, and then we do it. The fact that these artists and programmers were able to turn around the scrapped game and create something functional on release (albeit disappointing) is very impressive. I doubt anyone on the sims team WANTED this to happen. And honestly it was really smart of them to reuse things from the scrapped game, that probably saved them precious time to put something together. And again, the artists have 0 control over decisions like this. id much rather blame the game industry and EA for being money hungry and forcing artists to cut corners, than blame the people who worked their butts off to fix the problems created by those above them.
It definitely makes you appreciate the developers and artists more considering they had to redo the whole thing in just over a year after the SimCity fiasco.
I'm cutting veggies for dinner while watching this. Cannot wait for this deep dive, I can never get enough of the dunking on the SimCity disaster. Let's hope Sims 5 won't go down this route, we want her to survive!
As someone who played TSO back in the day when it was still in BETA (and then a little after you had to actually pay for it).... I really don't want Sims to be online. I don't like playing/sharing my dollies with others.
The Sims 5 needs to go ham on the animations. Make everything interactive. Make there be dozens of different ways sims can interact and animate with eachother, with different contexts. The Sims is gonna have to go nuts with this, I think, cos in the other aspects of the Sims, they are going to be outshined by other developers.
EA have this strange and weird obsession with Multiplayer ever since their upper management said “Singleplayer games are dead” (to paraphrase a bit) and recently, with their claims of “Blockchain/NFT are the future” (again, to paraphrase it a bit) I can see EA disregarding the concerns about how enforced Multiplayer for future Sims games would be bad for the series (For example, of course, Sim City. Just look how dead that series now)
The Sims 4 on launch was such a disappointment. I bought it, played it for about 2 days, then went back to Sims 3. I didn't properly move to playing Sims 4 until the released the Vampires pack. With how much I'd hated the game before, Vampires blew me away! Although I am the kind of player who struggles without any occults. Awesome video as always, I really appreciate the kind of work that goes in to your history videos. Your content appeals to my weird interests perfectly, where else am I going to get stuff like this 💜
Just seeing the images she shared from OG Sims 4 with the completely gray featureless map is so sad. Like, why did they release it looking like a demo?
I feel like people who think that simcity failed because of the online crap haven't played the game. It failed because it's a ✨hot steaming pile of shit✨ and even that is too much of a compliment. It literally doesn't work. Every city collapses sooner or later due to the shitty programming.
@@noot-noot-pingu-noot-noot ya that happened to me plenty of times as well, had gotten real tired of uninstalling and reinstalling that shit over and over just for my cities to collapse no matter what I did.
I'm guessing the junk code from Olympus is what was hijacked to make that multiplayer mod that I've seen recently. I'm yet to try that but I'm curious about it.
@@BonaparteBardithion Yeah but I'm talking more about the fact that it's optional, the main game is still playable offline. But you're totally right, Sims and multiplayer are not really compatible
I feel like EA has seen games like Fortnight, and Fall Guys, and want something like that. A game people will play obsessively (even more than we play the sims now), and spend literal truckloads of money on. They've already mentioned subscription services (like seasons in fortnight etc), and I feel like I've seen mention of a store type system (replacing packs/kits with a store that rotates every day like fortnight and fall guys) They'll probably bring back sim points, etc etc etc. I also wholeheartedly believe they are forcing Maxis/The Sims Team to do this. Against their will. Which is probably why so many high profile/life long sims team members have jumped ship, and been replaced with newbies.
Firstly, it's Fortnite (battle royal game) and EA already have it's own battle royal game, Apex Legends. I think they want to make The Sims 5 more liie Animal Crossing type of game.
I personally think the best way to make it """multiplayer""" is in the sorta Sims Social Facebook game way, where you actually play solo but could visit your friends houses to annoy them and stuff, obviously being a shitty Facebook game it meant you needed friends to actually get it to work but it was still kinda fun while it lasted. Taking away the main part of solo play would probably just be another miss for EA
@@ReagannJ exactly!! And even if you decided to visit them, it didn't influence /their gameplay at all, your sim wouldn't even show up in their house and it was fun
MINDBLOWING! I always thought the nice design of the worlds was the Sims 4's only redeeming feature. I've always been a bit of an apologist for the shitty little neighbourhoods thinking that, at least, they were more attractive, interesting landscapes than in previous games. I thought they were trying something new, but turns out it was the same old set dressing from Project Olympus!
A lot of people have taken this as an opportunity to hate on the sims 4 more but I think them having to quickly rush to remove the online features but still make a decent game is a good explanation for the sims 4 being bare bones. I just don’t think it’s an explanation for the sims 4 still being pretty bare bones after 7+ years. But this makes me more excited for the sims 5 since we know it’s already in development. I just hope the online will be a choice and they will use the time that the sims 4 has given them wisely.
The people making decisions for TS5 are the same ones who did so for 4 and we all know how that turned out. And they don't seem to have learned an ounce considering that they are still trying to make "online" work, instead of trying to strive for actual improvements to the gameplay depth for 5. TS4 even after 7 years is still very much behind TS2 in terms of gameplay and the way Sims themselves function. Now we play with little dumb robots, who don't have an ounce of individualism and personality (other than looks), with bad AI on top of that. And emotions are just the most simple basic forms of the way they would manifest in a game that tries to simulate life. It's like they forgot that the Sims matter the most, while creating 4. And the Sims haven't improved significantly in 7 years. So great that you have hope for 5, but like how? 😅😔
Okay, so the thing about only being able to control one character in a household …. Reminds me of when they said they didn’t allow controllable cats and dogs because “you can’t control your pets in real life” …. And I was annoyed because, I can’t control my toddler or my siblings, or roommates in real life either but I can in sims 😥🙄
OMG I just remembered my sister playing a sims game on facebook back in the days... The Sims Social it is called. Came out around the year 2012 and it actually is a multi player game! There has to be a connection between all of those games.
I don’t know wether this should be a good sign, because the only reason the sims 4 was so shallow was bc it was made from a multiplayer game, meaning the next game should be as good as the rest but modernised. Or should I be scared bc they might try to make another online game 😭
I'm glad you brought up the lack of spin offs towards the end because like, if they'd just said Olympus was like Sims 3 online or whatever and was a spin off and not a mainline game they probably wouldn't have had to make a round peg go into a square shaped hole except.....no one (Not just EA a lot of game producers and devs do this now) don't make spin off games now and spin offs are a really cool way to experiment with the formula of a game and try and reach new audiences. Think of the popularity of Mario Party or Mario Kart. Like they could reboot the sims online or mysims and i think we'd all be happy but NOOOO you have to mess about with your main franchises! Sims Castaway, Sims Bustin out, Sims medieval were all great games that moved away from a traditional Sims format but were fun within their own right. And i understand that the main sims team has to focus on the sims but literally just outsource the developer it's a spin off it's fine
The only multiplayer aspect I’d be interested in is the ability to visit my friends’ worlds when they’re playing too and spend time with their sims. But that could only work if they’re playing the game at the same time. Aside from that, I’m an introvert and so are most of my sims. Know your audience, Sims 😂
I appreciate the examples (and notice that example images are coming, since my attention span is basically that of a breakfast muffin). So many of these TH-cam history-of docies lose me because they never do the effort to show references images (they usually just show gameplay of some game). A+ effort. I love these!
If you want to know why they're obsessed with multiplayer games, it's because they want the game to be a live service. If it's a live service they can have recurrent user spending. Instead of you buying the game and then owning the game and having the game, they want you to have to keep paying the money for microtransactions, for pay to win mechanics, for other garbage like that
Alternatively it could be like WOW. Where you buy the game and then have to pay a monthly fee to actually play it. Then there are items on top of that which you can buy. I really hope that's not the way it's going
Might as well bring over the Sims 3 Store
It be like sims 'freeplay' *shudder*
i bet they will make it a subscription based too
As if they’re not doing that already with their billions of completely shallow DLC. So so greedy.
I wouldn’t mind having a multiplayer OPTION, but if it’s required I wouldn’t buy it. I play the sims as an introvert because I don’t want to speak to a single person for 8-48 hours. Mandatory multiplayer would ruin it, however if you had the option to turn it on and had randomly people controlling other sims in your world that could be really fun and stir up awesome drama. But I think it needs to be an option if it’s included for sure.
The 8-48 hour range has me cackling (and is 10000% true)
Could be cool to go in an Animal Crossing direction where you decide if and when people come to visit and they have to be your friends, not just some random person.
@@tarynhulse854 like they attempted with the sims 3! But actually go through with it this time instead of your sims becoming an NPC when they leave for your friend’s town
The EA execs don't know and don't care to know the Sims audience. That's why they keep forcing the multi-player issue even after it failed spectacularly. It's just so self sabotaging to me.
The legitness of this! You could create college courses on researching!
My fundamental problem is that they consistently release unfinished games and charge an obscene amount of money for them. I’m not going to pay fkn $80 for a half a game that maybe will get fixed slowly over the course of 7+ years.
Maybe that's why ts5 is so long coming maybe it will be complete a game at launch. (when i say complete i mean playable and enjoyable as a base game. )
You're right. It's a good game to play now with several packs but the TS3 base game is packed full of so much more. It's sad looking back on how much we lost especially with all this in mind.
@@Jess-nc4oy The Sims team put out a complete game I won't hold my breath 7 years later Sims 4 is missing basics
@@lance9249 I'm being hopeful lol
@@Jess-nc4oy I think the reason ts5 is taking so long is because it is expensive to make a whole new game, and some execs have realized 'why make a new game when people are still buying the dlc for ts4?' I think thats why kit's happened as well. They are trying to milk the game dry before they even think of releasing another one.
I think you ARE using your history degree. No other simmer (that I follow at least) makes such videos. We LOVE them and we NEED them, Plumbella! 😁
Yeah I mean at the very least she’s definitely using skills like research, analysis, and presentation of findings which I’m sure where definitely developed during a History degree. I did Art so it’s honestly a guess but I definitely think she uses her degree 🙌🏻
100%
Agree 100%
If you like this kind of content, PleasantSims does really indepth videos a bit like this. Different vibes but would recommend!
^ pleasantsims
AND the sims lord - she does world/sim history of’s
ea is the only company that could flop twice...online aint gonna work! learn from your mistakes ea
And stop lying!! Lmao I knew the “Lower-End Systems” rhetoric was complete bull when they announced that they were stopping supporting 32-bit machines and releasing the TS4 Legacy Edition. Lmao
And dont even get me started on Batuu and Lindsay (whose been working on the Sims since TS2) saying it was her idea :/
Poor developers man… having to take the brunt of criticism because theyre basically FORCED to lie perhaps due to contractual obligations…. Pfft
i think if it was done right, and optional, it actually could work. online is different now, people might like it more. the thing is do we trust ea to do it right?
@@micahcook2408 Erm, hold on a sec here. 32-bit systems don't have a lot to do with low-end systems. There were some seriously beefed up 32-bit systems back in the day. And a 64-bit system means nothing with a shitty CPU and GPU. Dropping support for 32-bit was a necessary decision, as the bloody thing was already outdated in the year 2000 and only the cheapest PCs still included 32-bit processors by 2014.
Back in the day, after the system requirements for Sims 4 were announced, I did some support on a forum, trying to help people judge whether or not their PCs could handle the game and trust me when I say that, yes, the vast majority of the Sims playerbase is running this game on literal bricks and they absolutely had to cater to them and downgrade the game's demands if they didn't want to alienate about 70% of their playerbase. I am talking GPUs and CPUs from the early naughties here. Those weren't lies but the bitter truth. The Sims has always and will always be a game that is mostly played by non-tech-savvy casual players.
@@DerLetzteMonarch of course, you’re correct but im specifically talking about the team saying why the reason TS4 was released the way it was, with as little content as possible (no pools, no cars, the neighborhood loading screens, no toddlers, etc.), was because of lower end systems. When in all actuality Sims 2 and 3 (which 3 had the issue of the game being unoptimized - people still run into issues of crashing, not loading, lag, even on higher end systems, to this day if they do nothing to combat it) had more things in the game on release with worse technology than 4 at the time.
EA might actually go under pretty soon bc if the sims 5 is a flop, on top of their other failing franchises like Madden, I don’t see how they’d survive.
These videos really should be used as a webinar to teach the Sims team about their own history, which they seem to have forgotten
Truly sage advice lol
@@woodpigeon7776 thank you 😂
Which Sims team? Sims 1, 2, 3, 4? Or do you mean the Sim City teams? Every game has a different team. It's not the same exact people working on every game. They also don't make a lot of the bigger decisions that impact the actual games after release, those kinds of decisions come from the bosses that don't actually make the game itself. Publishers and investors often have more of a say than the team that actually works on the game.
Not giving individual credit is how corporations get customers to blame developers for things beyond their control. The hundreds to thousands of people that work hard to make the various sims games playable didn't "forget their own history" because they're not all the same people. SimCity released in 1989, The Sims released in 2000...yes, things will change over the course of 30 years. It's not the fault of the teams themselves. Don't blame the sims teams for decisions beyond their control.
@@shannon9009 I'm not naive, I know the people who spend hours everyday making the game care about the game. And I know all the shortcomings and disappointment of the Sims 4 comes from the greedy corporation that is EA, not the developers. Still there's corporate EA people who oversee the Sims 4 who probably don't care about it and I think they could use a couple lessons
@@shannon9009 Remember how simgurugrant flat out lied and denied that Sims 2 or 3 ever had 3 EPs released in the same year, for some odd reason.
Having said that, making the simgurus create social media accounts and interact directly with the public was a move of evil genius by EA PR. They end up taking flack for decisions made by anonymous C Suiters
Even if you want to give EA a pass for this, "trying to save the game," EA still spent over SEVEN YEARS bloating the game with recycled objects and animations instead of adding to the UI and AI to make the SIMS have more purpose than a glorified digital Barbie doll. It's shallow! It's not a social experiment, it's not a "Life Simulation."
And it's fucking expensive as well.
@@D0MiN0ChAn Me before playing games:" Why would anyone pay money for digital images you can't touch?"
Me after The Sims 4: "Why the hell did I spend over $1000?"
@@itscyberqueen13 honestly, CC makers are out here doing the most. Add-on packs, that don't require the pack are so amazing, its like finding a diamond in a bag of gravel.
@@D0MiN0ChAn THIS!
Sims 4 is literally reusing all the content from previous games, yet EA (I guess) invented new labels and have it at higher prices. It's so ridiculous to have a gamepack cost the same as previous expansion packs, and current sims 4 expansions being this high price for no reason. I also have no idea who comes up with how they end up diving the content, e.x. Seasons should have been a game pack - with the amount of content their adding to the gameplay, but not as much to build-and-buy, compared to Parenthood for example. Also, the fact it took them so long to add Seasons and how badly community was asking for that, they literally just banked off of us.
I think even back in 2016 people were saying it's better to wait for sales before you buy anything for Sims 4. Now, it's a must to either wait for sale or go for the bundle with 3 things in it. And even with that game play is just boring
I think it’s more of giving the sims team a pass for doing what they can not giving EA a pass.
I feel that The Sims is like playing "dolls" for grown ups. The only multiplayer type option I feel comfortable with is watching lets play on TH-cam. I'd really rather stay in my cozy safe introverted world & not have strangers interfering on my goal of reaching level 10 of knitting, doing manicures & owning 7 cats
All the cats!!!!
I would like if it was like animal crossing and I could go visit my friend our send them an email/postcard but that's it. There's a mod that makes sims 4 multiplayer and it seems fun but it's an add-on not the main thing
Absolutely agree and also your sims goals are my irl goals (crochet not knitting and currently no cats bc brother is allergic)
@@dia.96 They kinda did that in the Sims 3, you could send gifts to friends with an account on the community website or something. No one used the feature that I know of.
@@Noblewynter I remember that and did actually send gifts.
But I only got 1 back xD
You could also host a friend as an entertainer or something. But it never really worked in my game.
Mandatory Multiplayer for The Sims will effectively kill the franchise. Multiplayer in games invites trolling and hacking, so right off the bat the idea of trying to get some peace in playing a life simulation game and having to deal with annoying ppl messing around with your storylines is not enjoyable to me. Secondly, this would mean EA will make the game even more "kid-friendly". They've already done away with some of the more risque elements from past Sims games & they'd more than likely remove the ability to woohoo because that would be extremely inappropriate to have kid players interacting with that kind of feature in multiplayer with strangers online. And then we have to talk about how this would probably be a game that doesn't allow mods or CC. Because how could your character show up on another person's lot wearing CC that that other person doesn't have saved to their computer? Would it auto replace the way CC furniture does when you download a CC lot from the gallery? This is a whole mess. I hope they don't do it.
I really miss the dark tone of the earlier sims games, and the more adult themes. I don't want to see the franchise dumbed down and disneyfied even more for a younger audience.
@@Hungarycloud Ikr the thought alone makes me puke. They need to be demolished if they do this, we all miss the more dark and adult sims games.
@@Ice.muffin i'm actually all about happy-go-lucky, it's simple, it's relaxing, it's lovely. Seeing my sims 4 family having a good time makes my day
Idk why i commented this i just wanted to say it ig
@@Qwerty-wk3jy There's all kinds of people out there, can never make everyone happy with one decision, that's a given fact unfortunately ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@Qwerty-wk3jy I think they should have the options available to play both happy-go-lucky style and more adult/dark style. More choices in terms of playstyle are always good bc every player is different and may prefer to play in different ways.
my argument against "it's for low end specs" is,, sims 4 runs horrendously on low end computers. I had to wait like 10 real life minutes for my sims to go to school while the whole game freezed, city living is a foggy void on lowest settings. plus later expansion packs get more and more demanding. they say create a style was removed because it's too demanding on low end systems, but then they added it for cats and dogs anyway? idk I don't buy it
The sims 4 wouldn't run at all on my old laptop when I first got it, ended up buying a new laptop because of it but somehow the sims 3 ran perfectly fine on my old laptop including 2 dlc
Fair, but it's definitely less demanding than previous instalments, though! Still not perfect, but there is an improvement in performance.
Honestly. Plus beginner gaming PCs are becoming way more affordable as the years go on, many people buy PCs solely to play the sims. EA is just looking for a cop out. But for those who can’t afford to, they’re stuck with only a couple of expansions and a crap ton of simulation lag.
I have a pretty good pc that's about a year old and have major troubles with Sims 4. I have all the Sims 4 packs to Snowy Escape (except Batuu and RoM), very few mods (Better Build/Buy, UI cheats, More Cas Columns) and the game consistently crashes my whole pc if I have anything else (Chrome, Spotify) open at the same time. I don't even play in live mode, just building.
Sims 3 runs way better for me even with all the packs, a lot of store content, and mods and cc. Last year I was able to open both Sims games with Chrome at the same time, with more mods in Sims 4 than I have currently, and could barely rotate the camera in Sims 4 because of how much it struggled, while Sims 3 was super smooth (this was even before the smooth patch!).
I can only play Sims 4 base game on my laptop if I turn ALL graphics settings to minimum AND have a fan under my laptop. It is so not a light game lol
Working in coorporate, I can just imagine how the developers came in one Monday and the management went 'Good morning, we're going to need a completely new game by the end of the week'.
As a communication designer this is giving me nightmares. Oof.
@@jgr_lilli_ having people not knowing a single thing about your job and telling you what to do is the most frustrating thing ever.
I’m always so proud when Cities: Skylines gets mentioned as the one who destroyed EA’s chokehold on those types of games. One of the creators is my second cousin, and her success has inspired me on my path to game graphics development.
tell her i love her game :)
Cities Skylines was of course published by Paradox, and in 2019 Paradox opened a new Studio headed up by Rob Humble, who made Second Life, Sims 2, and Sims 3. My hope is that they pull another Cities Skylines and show EA how the life-sim genre is done.
I LOVED Skylines when it released but I can't go back to it now because there's a Sims level of DLC :( fantastic achievement though, so so much better than Simcity reboot
@@The8bitbeard the game is too good to need a sequel honestly. What could they add that the mods can't?
@@w花b By "pull another Cities Skylines", I meant make a competitor to the Sims that absolutely embarrasses EA with how good it is.
I have no basis for this, but it feels like multiplayer makes it easier for micro-transaction, especially with younger players. Like peer pressure, if all your friends' sims are wearing an expensive skin ofc you're gonna want it too. Or loot boxes and shit. And with the sims 4 it feels like ea are reaching for a younger audience. I have been binge-playing the sims 3 last couple of days and omg it's so fun! Why i ever played sims 4 is beyond me bc that game literally killed my passion for sims, but it's so nice getting back into it! I just wish i still had all the sims 2 games!
Sims 2 is technically abandonware, try oldgamesdownload .com if you want it.
I got mine from eBay. I think you can still message the people for a free version of the Ultimate Edition if you show proof that you own a copy.
There's plenty of ways to play sims 2 again lol. I have all my discs left but they don't work on windows 10 so I went with the piracy approach
The Sims 2 Reddit has multiple ways to get it and run it on Windows 10 🥰
Omg yes if the game's online, what would happen if one person has a pack and the other doesn't
There's also an additional problem within Maxis, and that is how ridiculously top-heavy they are. They have too many on the top versus the actual team size. Sims 4 already has a smaller team by default than Sims 3 had. And now that they are working on 2 big projects additionally, plus all the staff that left or got moved to another project, it's even more clear why they are focusing so much on Kits. They seemingly do not have the employee numbers to make actual substantial packs (heck, even by Kit standards, we only got a SINGLE gameplay one)
That makes a lot of sense, and I bet Covid doesn’t make it any better.
yea a big chunk of the team are working on software for 'upcoming' sims games.
@@buzzii Probably working on the millions of microtransactions coming for TS5
Wow, this reminds me of the development disaster that plagued Sonic 06 back then, one half of Sonic Team devs working on Sonic 06 and the other half working on Secret Rings, resulting in lack of manpower to make either game with 06 being the primary victim of that practice
Toddlers were missing at release, but let's not forget that both teens and elders are just ADULT SIMS
All it would take to make teens different is just a slight change in height at the very least
@@elliotgibsonroberts6672 or proportions!? Teens can have pretty different proportions compared to adults. Multiple different proportions might be too much to ask, but at least a slight height and proportions difference would be in order. They have proven that they know how to do it with toddlers and kids.
It makes sense that elders are just adult sims because well they're just older. But WHY teens have the same proportions and height as adults just doesn't make sense to me. Even acne was only available with one of the expansion packs.
@@elliotgibsonroberts6672 and young adults lol
@@jgr_lilli_ they just make them skinnier when you switch them between adult and teen, it’s lazy
i have no interest in multi-player sims, i hope it’s not forced on us. i want to play my wild storylines in peace without being judged!!
Ooh I'm interested in those wild storylines👀.
Yeah I want control over the story when I play the sims. I don’t wanna deal with real people.
fr, sims 4 is a game for the weird introverted quiet kids in the corner of the classroom.
We need our escapism where we just do whatever we want in our own little virtual world.
Cue to me in Sims 3 putting my house on a hill then being late to everything.
Rotating it so so gently just waiting for the square to turn green and SLAMMING the click button before it turns red and you can't set down the lot again
There's something I don't understand: So all the complains that people have on The Sims 4 basically originates from the fact that originally was supposed to be an entirely different game, and as a result of that, they had to accomodate that game and fix it in order to become the next "The Sims" game. And now, they're trying to do the same thing once more, by transforming the next game into an multiplayer game... In that case, Paralives or other similar game will become the next City Skylines and nobody would talk about The Sims 5.
@dhalc Only time can tell :c
EA execs dont understand the playerbase, so they will make the same mistake again i suppose
This really explains why some of the base game objects look so cartoony/out of place/like a completely different art style.
They were literally designed for a different game 🤯
I don't have such a refined eye for details, do you have a few examples pls?? I'm really curious now.
I'm curious too! :o
@@Ice.muffin if you place some of the items that were in the pictures featured in the video, and place it beside items features in packs you’ll really see the difference
The entire first half of this video was me pointing at the screen going YES! Those who came into the franchise in the Sims 4 and had no experience with Sims 3 era don't know about all the rumors and leaks about Sims 4 being online, and the utter shit show wave of anger from the community. When that Sim City game came out, people were so pissed off. It was just depressing. The the Sims 4 rumors hit and people were just done with EA and their bullshit. Community members wrote letters, there we campaigns. It was a heated mess. EA knew they had pissed off the community and they backpeddled so hard, and thats how we got The Sims 4.
Not that TS4 was any better received as a result. I remember watching some OG Sims let's players struggle to make any long form content because the base game was feckin' empty and they basically had nothing to do with their sims. Add to that the non-existence of toddlers and any legacy-style series was basically doomed from the get-go. I still feel like Sims 4 LPs don't hold up as well as compared to TS2 or TS3, just because there's way less meaningful family gameplay. An absolute mess.
@@D0MiN0ChAn litellary, there are barely any long running series in Sims 4 and most content around this game is either a simple challange, a mod review, or building.
@@D0MiN0ChAn I remember I used to love bingeing those long TS3 let plays with like 40 videos in a playlist. When TS4 came out it felt like those types of videos had disappeared. It's a shame really. I remember watching World Adventures LPs and being amazed by the sheer amount of content they put into a single expansion pack. I still play the sims 3 and have fun doing so, plus it's way cheaper than TS4 😅
It is unfortunate for fans of the sims that so many people were willing to pay for all these trash packs for Sims 4...Cause that just shows they can charge absurd amounts for barely anything.
Coming from a AAA game dev: I honestly believe they're working on a new sims game, mainly because when companies cut down on budget and resources for one game it usually means they're working on something else. And given what they're doing on Sims 4 right now I would believe that they have a much smaller team on Sims 4 right now than what they used to have..
ooooooo what game are you a dev of?
Yeah, I agree, there was barely any stuff packs or expansion packs compared to previous years. I wonder if they'll release sims 5 after paralives or before.
We have known this for a very long time.
@@Indian_gae_boii I'm at IO Interactive working on our recently-ish announced James Bond game that's still very much in-progress :-)
@@iammyself7885 oo good luck and stay healthy!
Why is EA pushing multiplayer so much when in the last decade or more it hasn’t worked, like why aren’t they learning, why are they seeing a failure twice over with SimCity and the pre-sims 4 version of the game. They keep proving themselves as a company that have their own ideas that they insist on, that they hang onto like a dog with a bone, without realising that this same stuff hasn’t worked and they just don’t listen to their customer base. Everyone is either against it or only wants it if there is still the option to not have to play multiplayer. How is that not enough for them to be like “huh, maybe we are wrong, we need to stop forcing this idea”. I just get the vibe from EA that is about what they want to do, they don’t listen and they just can’t admit where they are failing.
Because the executives are idiots, simple as that
It's money, always. Multiplayer games are perfect for microtransactions :D
yea multiplayer games make a lot of money for them. and sims fans are largely not interested in multiplayer games. hence why they are failing. but I'd love it if they sold sims and other Maxis properties.
@@nininini035 yes that makes sense, however they have managed to split up content to much with the Sims 4 to make plenty of money, why not keep doing something that is working (I know it’s not ideal for customers but they don’t care). They also aren’t going to make a lot of money with a multiplayer if most players hate it and don’t use it.
Long term wise, multi-player games mean way more profit than solo game (greatest examples would be gta 5 and fortnite). The game can keep running for ages, with updates here and there, endless choice for microtransactions, and since the charm is in connecting with other players, there would be no need to really invest in immense amount of features to keep players entertained.
But of course there's a very low chance for it to ever work with the sims, unless it's added as an option (like how tons of games give their solo titles from very loved franchises an online game they can jump in after completing the main story). However sadly the higher-ups who make these decisions do not play games. They're businessmen who observe trends, what has been generating the most profit/has the potential of doing so. So with multiplayer being even more prevalent now than it was nearly a decade ago, they're never gonna give the idea up...
this video explains why the sims 4 would have performance issues if we had open world etc, because it's not built to function as a main sims game. it's built on the same engine as sim city because it was supposed to be an online game, unlike the sims 3 which was built around its own engine, which is why (at least as the basegame) it could handle being a fully fleshed out world in the way the sims 4 can't. obviously with the timescale they had for project olympus, they didn't have time to start over with a new game once the online game was scrapped, but it really makes you think about what we could've had if the sims 4 was created as an offline game from the get-go.
I feel like it's important to remember that there's a difference between developers and management, and management loves to screw over developers
I don't think the developers of Sims 4 are lazy or that they don't care, they clearly do care, the issue is that the gaming industry actively hates game developers and makes their jobs as difficult as possible
There are so many processes and approval processes that they have to go through just to get the absolute tiniest of features into a game
I wish that the Sims 4 was better, but I understand that the team were forced to work with way less time and resources than they needed to turn Olympus into a proper Sims 4, and now they have to work with that broken base and try to get it as close as they can to what players want, which probably isn't always possible
Also, I doubt that EA would actually try to make Sims 5 fully online, they are a business and if they didn't learn from SimCity then they are going to be knowingly signing themselves up for failure, which I don't think they want to do. Most of the "evidence" at Sims 5 will be online is completely baseless speculation that comes from a misunderstanding of terms used in extremely vague job descriptions, Sims 4 itself already has implemented online features-The Gallery! You need to be able to connect to the internet to download updates and Sims Deliveries! The Gallery is a very popular feature that it would make sense to bring to a potential Sims 5, and the game would have to be able to connect to the internet to be able to be updated.
And even if there was a multiplayer element, like I said, they learned from SimCity, it would most likely be an optional mode in addition to the main single player gameplay. Would would probably be similar to Animal Crossing's online multiplayer, where you can invite friends and play in a world together.
I would also hope that they wouldn’t make sims 5 fully online but EA likes to screw companies over. They did that with BioWare by having a mmo gaming fully knowing that the fan base was into their solo RPGs and when Andromeda tanked and Mass Effect update did extremely well, only then did they learn to respect their audience. So I guess we’ll only know with time.
@@8ri1 I just feel like they already learned from simcity, so it would just be silly for them to try again without making massive adjustments to the plan (like doing an animal crossing style multiplayer instead of fully online)
My issue to is legal business jargon… I wish developers could speak honestly about the project sometimes because it creates a heap of drama in their communities when so much of the setbacks/issues are thrown onto the developers. Like for two examples, 1) the EA and Disney partnership they’ve had since 2013 (hence why there has been Star Wars content in the game since its initial release) and how Lindsay (Head Developer) said it was her idea but imo, personally, I just feel like she wouldn’t be completely on board with making a game that is just an online advertisement for the Disney Attraction and have no Sims-World integration (aliens are costumes, Kylo Ren and Rey are not marriable/woohoo-able/etc., Batuu isnt inhabitable without cheats, etc.), and 2) The “Low System Requirement” lie imo because EA stopped supporting 32-bit computers and released TS4 Legacy edition for lower end computers, not to mention, how people with even higher end systems complain about Simulation Lag, Bugs, etc.
It may never happen, but I just need these industries and companies to have more transparency in the World. Would save a lot of headache and people blaming the frontmen when there are people behind the scenes in control of mostly everything lmao
It’s mind boggling that EA can’t even keep the gallery working properly, yet they want to release sims 5 as a online game. It’s bound to fail >:(
I still remember how absolutely shocked I was watching the first official Sims 4 trailer at Gamescom 2014. I felt so betrayed; I didn't vibe with the cartoony look at all. If they hadn't offered the base game for free all these years ago, I still probably wouldn't be playing TS4 at all. Remember the deluxe version of the game for 80 bucks? Yikes. And for what? For an absolutely empty shell of a game, with so many of the iconic sim staples like ghosts, aliens, pools (!?) and toddlers missing completely. And the hyped up emotion system is still messing so much with my sims' AI. It's like they didn't even know what they wanted this game to be, and you can definitely feel that. Sure, the game has come a long way since being absolutely *empty* af. TS4 still isn't my favorite by a landslide, to be perfectly honest, but at least they're actively trying to fix up the rough patches. Just goes to show that games built on a shoddy foundation will never be as good as the ones who had put a lot more care (and time) into them. I've completely given up hope for what The Sims 5 could even bring to the table other than a forced online multiplayer and lots of microtransactions. It's EA after all, and their recent track record with so many of their beloved and iconic game franchises has been absolutely disgraceful.
I remember trying it out on a friend's PC back in 2014/15 and I literally haven't touched this game until it was on sale just recently for like $5 it was a complete tragedy. It was so bleak, the portraits of the sims were just basically T posing and the world map was just some black and white bullshit 🤢🤢🤢 it genuinely felt like they just released some demo beta version of a game. I must admit thought that right now it really feels like a finished game. If it released like this it probably could have avoided the horrible reputation it has now, although this is still honestly just a dead uninspired husk of a game. I use it only to make sims, I hope this franchise dies at this point... sims 4 hit me way too deep, I hope Paralifes or whatever else takes over.
i made the dumb decision of spending $80 on the premium edition when it came out cus i was 11.. but even at that age i was severely disappointed. i remember i would quit the game after 30 minutes of gameplay because it was so boring, and that still holds true today.
Am I the only one who has always loved the cartoony look? 😳
@@Minniemooz I mean, I've gotten used to it over the years, but back then after its first reveal I felt like I was in the twilight zone. It was such an abrupt change of style to what we were used before; paired with the lack of basically everything else, it was completely incomprehensible to me 😅
My dad got me the deluxe version bc he didn't know how bare it would be. The only 'deluxe' thing was a few hats.
There's a few leaked videos (even a promotional one0 from Olympus that clearly shows that the game was supposed to be multiplayer (I sent them to your email, Jesse, so feel free to check them or list here), so they really had to remove all the online aspects, which would be the main selling point, and come up with a new one, hence were questionable "smarter sims" and "meaningful emotions" selling points - we're not buying them because they just had to come up with something to replace this huge multiplayer feature. Also it explains why we didn't get a color wheel - I saw someone explain that basically allowing all sorts of colors and textures would be (at least back then) quite difficult for an online game because basically you have to store texture variations from other people's game even if you don't use them.
While it's true that this is likely the reason why Olympus didn't have a colour wheel to begin with, working with textures in that way is still a major struggle for computers to this day. A game currently being created could probably pull it off without the major hitches we know from Sims 3's CASt. But back pre-2014, I think Sims 4 would have struggled with those same exact issues, even if they had taken the time to rework the game to feature a colour wheel. So ultimately, even trying would have been a major waste of time and resources, I think. Especially considering how there were many other, much more essential features, they needed to integrate as Olympus became Sims 4.
They just need to let any concept of the sims being a multiplayer game go, let us introverted feelers play our own game in peace!
Yes, please leave us alone! Part of my reason for getting into Sims in the first place was that it didn't require a bunch of friends, like so many others.
True, makes me wonder if EA has any idea who Sims players are. The people they're trying to target now are not interested in Sims games but are the ones who spend tons on microtransactions... Greed has already killed SimCity, tf are they trying to do now?
Also, I enjoy NOT needing to be on wifi all the time to play. As someone who works in an environmental field I am often places where I don't always have internet access
It needs to be optional. I’m introverted but I would love the option to play with friends sometimes, it will bring something new for the sims.
Please just focus on making a good open world with REAL STORY PROGRESSION like the sims 3 and little details like the sims 2
Games that were originally released as single player games rarely ever work well as multiplayer. Another example of this (other than the Sims Olympus) is the Fallout series. Fallout 76, similarly to the Sims 4 was missing a TON of stuff on launch (mainly NPCs) because they focused mainly on multiplayer and less on what made the games great, which are the quirky NPCs, the story, the world, and environmental storytelling. All of these were added AFTER launch, but much like the Sims 4, this left a very bad taste in many people's mouth's. EA and Bethesda alike seem to be more concerned with money than releasing a good quality game that will keep the fans engaged and excited for future installments.
Honestly, I don't blame them for wanting to make it run well for everyone but it'd be amazing if they made a Sims game that was like Skyrim or Fallout, in that, it fully leans into open world, graphics, and features, it'd only run on a gaming computer probably but it'd have everything right off the bat. Unrealistic, I know, but it's nice to imagine.
@@melodye14 a sims 4 medieval game....maybe...
Well FO76 isnt that bad, but its a buggy mess. Even know there is this level of jank that makes just *Moving* a pain
Yeah that’s why nothing works to fix sims personalities. And the traits have no real impact. They originally weren’t meant to have personalities because it was supposed to be you talking to another real person. Sims 4 was crafted out of the leftovers from Olympus. But when you strip out all the multiplayer things there aren’t many leftovers to work with. It’s just visuals and aesthetics with not much going on below the surface. They are making improvements but none of them add much true depth. Every improvement is interesting for like a week but then it’s lost it’s interestingness and the game hasn’t really changed.
It might be an unpopular opinion, but I really don't want the Sims to be online. I also don't really want a fully open world anymore, either. I think open neighborhoods would be much better than what we have now in Sims 4. Open neighborhoods would definitely help players with older or slower systems but it would give the player a better sense of being in the world. It's so irritating when you see Sims interacting with things on the next lot but your Sims can't because they aren't loaded into that lot...then when you load into that lot, no one's there.
I dont think thats an unpopular opinion. Like I enjoy the idea of the multiplayer mod as much as the next person, but its a closed multiplayer. And not constant
I don’t want open world neither. Open neighborhood sounds so much better to me. I haven’t played sims 3 but, someone said that once your sims moved they forget about the friends they made. And that’s not realistic.
I think online sims should be an option. Like you can play it offline but, if you want to play online with a friend you can do it too. Having different options for different playing styles sounds good to me.
@@moondivine2288 the thing about the sims 3 is, the neighborhoods are so big that you can't visit other ones. You can move out but there is no visiting, so even if your sim remembered their friends, they have no way of talking to them. It does such, but I get why they did it because ts3 was already slow from the start so I couldn't imagine it with multiple large neighborhoods running in the background.
open neighborhoods seems like it Would Work with sims 4 as well considering a) the worlds are separated into neighborhoods anyway and b) you could easily go from the library to the gym or whatever you want to do since those, in base game at least (idk abt other worlds), are all in the same neighborhood
@@moondivine2288 I agree about Open Neighborhood versus Open World but I feel the need to explain how Sims 3 worked. If your family moved lots within their original world then it was fine, they would remember everyone they knew, but moving between worlds in Sims 3 was like switching planets. It's not the same as moving between towns in Sims 4, which is like taking an airplane instead of a one-way spaceship. Sims 3 had other countries; France, Egypt, and China, so your Sims could have long distance relationships and travel without inherently forgetting everyone, but those countries were like the towns in Sims 4 (except massive and you had to pay to travel there; the most similar example would be Selvadorada from Jungle Adventure; the spiritual descendant of World Adventures.)
What player was doing when they moved the family across worlds was making a copy of the family and placing them into the Library/Gallery of Sims 4 so you could immediately put them into a New Save File. They weren't the exact same people and those townies might not exist in that new world, so it deleted every relationship outside of the family relationships. It was a Save transplant, so while it might not be realistic, it only happened in that scenario.
So basically they charged $75 for an unfinished leftover...
Are we surprised 🤣 half the packs are recycled in my opinions and they still charge for them . I feel like they keep updating the base game because they’re noticing what other developers are doing and don’t want to lose their audience.
People are still shelling out money for crumbs like kits, so they'll keep milking us because it's easy cash.
@@RionAgrias and that’s factual 👌they should focus on making the sims 5 with everything right (not perfect) from the start and stop charging with every single little things that the modders have already been providing us and some 🤷♀️
Yea recycled and such tiny amounts of items per for an insane price and the people willing to shill out the 1000 dollars for trash SIms 4 packs basically means an end to any decent Sims games.@@nafola7617
14:48 Those low-lying yellow flowers, carrying the landscaping from the game's infancy. Legendary.
If they’re dead set on making the sims 5 multiplayer, I agree it needs to be optional.
I have no idea how you’d even make it multiplayer. It’s not like animal crossing like you mentioned where you’re actively controlling your main character. Instead in the sims I feel like you take on the role more of a god watching your sims carry out their lives. I’m not really sure how that would work with more than one person involved.
Pantheon competing to make everyone's life miserable. There you are directing a Sim to be heroically athletic and someone else directs them to cook Poptarts until they burn to death.
Split-screen multiplayer on console (for at least one of the games pre-Sims-4, I can't remember what I played in multiplayer mode with my kid sis eons ago) was all right, though if one person paused the game, the other person had to sit and wait. I'm going to guess multiplayer doesn't let you pause, or if one person is set as the owner of the house, they have control of stuff like that. I don't remember if both of us could edit the house either.
@@tirsden it really just doesnt owrk. the only MP that could work is perhaps Animal Crossing style. But having many people exist in the same space in a Simulation like the Sims doesnt work at all.
It's not just the timing of TS5 but the fact that so many ppl from the old school of The Sims are unhappy with the way they stripped TS4 of gameplay.
I never played the sims 3.
But the sims 2 was far superior in terms of animation and logic. It was harder and there were consequences to failing that you bad to fight to bring yourself back from.
From what ive seen of the sims 3, it built on that with animation and logic. The sims 4 should have built on the sims 3 maybe not the super open world, it did cause alot of problems which is why i didnt play it i only had a laptop, but i liked the story progression of the people around the sim.
Sims 4 should have launched with (among the obvious) seasons, cars, story progression, more worlds, and larger maps where you can place your own lots, cars, seasons, Get to work, dine out, get together, pets, laundry day stuff, the vacuums, apartments, university, island living, parenthood, bowling night stuff, aliens, vampires, werewolves, and witches from day one. That should have been the foundation. And then they should built everything else in top of that.
The sims 4 base game could have been a masterpiece.
Tiny living and eco lifestyle should have been one pack. Knitting and cottage living should have been a single pack, kids stuff and toddler stuff should have been one pack.
Memories on top of the traits and the sims 2's "horrorscope personalities would have been PERFECT with the mood system. No more "reminiscing about things that never happened. It would say what they were remembering and why that thing has an affect on their mood. Sentiments added to that would have improved it. The different grave stones for those who died getting everything in their aspiration.
Having LIFE TIME aspirations, with the ones we have in game as MILE STONES to be completed in their aspiration that can be achieved...
Yes it would have been a monster of a game base game, but what away to start and its not like they dont have the technology. Then bringing in other elements like jungle adventure, paranormal stuff, out door retreat and journey to batuu all could have been bigger and badder expansions with more to do and offer.
Journey to batuu could have been a great addition with going to other planets. We can already go to sixam, being able to go to other places in the star wars universe as apart of regular sims continuity could have been perfect. Expanding on what was already there with aliens instead of making it into a theme park that you'd only go to once if at all.
There were many choices made a lot of them seemed rushed to me. Lets hope sims 5 at least has alot more than the first THREE expansion, game, and stuff packs of 4.
I'm not. I started playing when it was just the Sims before Livin' Large was even released. I LOVE the Sims 4. It's everything I wanted the game to be originally, sans multiplayer, but that's neither here nor there. The Sims 3 to me was trash and a fucking mess. I'm glad they ended up reworking an "online" version of the game into the Sims 4 we know today, because it's absolutely wonderful.
@@hakudoushinumbernine Do you know how many _years_ and how expensive the game would be if it had launched with all that stuff included right off the bat? Do you even understand how game development works? That would simply not be feasible even with the Sims 5.
@@godzandheros true, but, they could have reworked old code.
And also, they dont have to do it as soon as possible. They can wait another six years for them to make that game.
You have a game that big and expanded at launch and you dont have to come out with an expansion, stuff, or game pack for... years.
@@hakudoushinumbernine But you're forgetting about cost. It's going to be close to a $500 base game if you factor in all the things you listed they're going to have to develop to give you at launch. That's not a good business model at all.
Personally, I would probably NEVER use a multiplayer option. I like playing the Sims alone. I don't want anyone around me when I'm playing lol.
I really wish they had scrapped Olympus completely, delayed the release for a number of years, remade the game from scratch, then released Sims 4. Sims 4 has gotten better but it still can't live up to its full potential because of Olympus. It will forever have 'so much potential, if only'. And what's funny is how they tried to sell us on The Sims 4, taking about how they're "building an incredibly strong foundation that is capable of fulfilling every one of your desires in the years to come."
I hope they do better with Sims 5 but honestly I don't trust them to do multiplayer in The Sims and not have single player suffer somehow. I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but I don't trust EA and Maxis to do it. Even without multiplayer or minimal traces of it, look at the state of and issues with Sims 2 and 3. They might be better off hiring more people to make two separate Sims games and making one multiplayer and the other single player but I'd still be concerned with the state they'd both end in. That description of Olympus is about how I imagined Sims multiplayer though.
I mean if the game is so bad on release that our desires are to have the basics, toddlers and pools for example, they’ve made it easy for themselves to fulfil our desires 😂
I agree with the first paragraph. Us Sims fans will have an absolutely great game to stay with (Sims 3) while waiting for Sims 4 without a complaint. But now, with the amount of people not having it with what Sims 4 turned out to be, the community will probably be more impatient for Sims 5 causing the game to be rushed and, again, incomplete, causing the cycle to restart. I feel like there are more people hyped and waiting for Paralives to come out than Sims 5. Also, looking at comments under Paralives videos, you can really see how much EA dissapointed us lowered our expectations to the point that we get excited about things like height, taking shoes off when going indoors, sitting on counters and drawers, etc. It's kinda sad to see.
I don't understand why people still want the SIms 4 to go on and do not talk about fixing the actual game. No expansion pack or dlc will fix the base game. I'm ready to move on.
Yup. I'm ready to even wait another 10 years before the next Sims comes out. EA has gotten enough of my money at this point and they've proven that they simply can't be trusted. The good ol' times of triple A gaming are definitely over. Indie games is where it's at.
You'd think after this many years we could admit it's UNFIXABLE
@@D0MiN0ChAn And it's all the result of infinite greed. If human nature isn't the pinnacle of disgusting, I don't know what is.
Exactly, every expansion pack will have the same empty set-dressed worlds (no matter how pretty) and the overall mechanics of the game are just boring, whenever they tried to add more depth the engine seems to be unable to handle it resulting in broken features and glitches. Don’t get me wrong, I love building and CAS in the Sims 4 and I do play in live mode time and time again, but the latter always disappoints
Yea I don't understand if anyone is still hopeful for the Sims series...As them being able to make good money off of little work means they will do it repeatedly.
I'm starting to think most of the bugs and bloat and slow release of features of this game are because it's made on a multiplayer game's corpse effectively. The devs probably have to do a shit ton of extra work if the engine they're using was made for multiplayer. Effectively the Sims 4 is the reverse of Fallout 76. Fallout 76 was a multiplayer game made using a singleplayer game's engine, while the Sims 4 is a singleplayer game using a multiplayer game's engine.
I suspect they got inspired by Second Life and the whole rise of MMOs and changed last minute.
i think the fact that the sims 4 was made out of unwanted scraps of a forgotten game really highlights the effort and care (or lackthereof) that was put into the sims 4
absolutely killed it babe
As someone who's been playing the sims since the year 2000, I really hope they don't make TS5 multiplayer. That would be the biggest disappointment so far (imo). The sims community have very different play-styles and that's what's cool about this game, you can have options. Instead they should improve the gallery bc it's always been kinda broken. There's a lot they can do to improve this function and make it work better. There are so many details of the game they should also be prioritizing. The thought they could scrap it all and make it multiplayer is so upsetting tbh.
Yeah, I don't get why they are so dead set on having more reasons to not program personality and gameplay depth. Of course online mannequins helps with that. 🤢
But how about some real innovation, like procedural animations, so that we can get different heights and more varied animations? Or an improvement on the wants and fears system? Or an improved flexible open world?
I would be so upset- the Sims is an ESCAPE from the real world, why would you want to integrate it?
GREAT INFO! One of my concerns w multiplayer is timing: I like the option to customize lifespans (short, normal, long) and I'd like to see us get back to adjusting lifespans in more detail, not syncing everyone up for multiplayer.
Yeah one question I had by the end of this video is "will aging be off or what?" Unless I'm playing a challenge game, I always have aging off for played households in Sims 4.
I’m also wondering what would happen with the game speeds. Being able to go at faster speeds have always been a fundamental part of the game, but how are you going to do that in multiplayer?
@@choddle8427 I can't imagine not being able to 3x speed while my sims are sleeping.
I'm having lunch right now and it looks like this is going to be my mealtime entertainment. What snacks are y'all eating?
A scone and breakfast sandwich :)
Grilled ham and cheese sandwich
Air
I just made pierogies!! Enjoy your meal :)
i just cooked a full english after uploading this x
You know it’s gonna be a good week when Jess uploads a entire history of
Correct but this is soo overused
@@faveexono
Forgot multiplayer for one of the only solo games left. Bring back lore! And interesting story progression! Bring in being able to see your sims history and have that be more diverse. Bring in placing your house by the waterfall because it’s atmospheric. Multiplayer would be like being lost in a book and someone comes along and starts trying to talk to you about it, a really stilted experience
I wouldn’t mind multiplayer as long as it’s just an option. Online should never impact the game itself. But I’d low key love to be able to live in a neighborhood with a few of my friends in The Sims
This is what I’ve been saying, the sims was rushed at release hence the many missing features and bad builds(although the EA builds are still bad) and the claim that the game was trying to be “ minimalistic” when they just didn’t build the game to be The Sims 4.
Yeah, I didn't realize how bad the builds can be until I started watching lilsimsie. One of the houses in Realm of Magic has stairs in the back but no backdoor so the stairs lead just to a wall. Some of the roof colors don't match too and some lots (across packs) have no toilets included. A lot of playtesting clearly didn't happen.
lowkey feeling like the sims is gonna run themselves into the ground if they force multiplayer
Hello Paralives
I was one of them kids beggging for sims 3 and then the sims 4 came out and my mom thought "same shit" and bought it for me on release....the greyscale still haunts my dreams
i was like 13 when ts4 launched on christmas and it ruined my entire fucking holidays
I love to imagine what the sims gurus think when they see these uploads. Love this work, plumbella xo
EA might actually go under pretty soon bc if the sims 5 is a flop, on top of their other failing franchises like Madden, I don’t see how they’d survive.
I’d feel bad for the developers if that happens tho bc I truly believe its the company that’s holding them back and forcing them to cut corners and make as much money for as minimal effort possible
EA as a company has a history of doing whatever they want, regardless of their consumer’s feedback. They weren’t always like this but 😕. That’s why we’ve gotta make their pockets hurt to have our voices heard.
Exactly this, I have heard horror stories online from former EA employees, the current ones definitely can't say anything but at least we got to know how it's really like behind the scenes (even the former ones probably weren't supposed to reveal the working conditions). I hope the sims team and others EA devs are treated better now, and that EA holds back from interfering with the direction of the game after the entire simcity debacle. If they don't care about making a good game or their employees' creative needs, they should at least care about the franchise being successful/being a cash cow and in order for them to do that they need the consumers to actually like their product
If EA is so obsessed with bringing in a multiplayer aspect to the sims, I think they should bring it into game packs like Strangerville that is already a collaborative game where you need to work with npcs anyway or even Jungle adventure.
I like to imagine that the incredibly long lifespan of the sims 4 is because the teams are putting in a ton of work on sims 5 and trying to buy as much time as possible. So part of the game refreshes, stupid kits, and constant content updates is just to draw out the lifespan of the game as long as possible to leave more development time for ts5. And I know it's probably a huge reach to assume that, but I will live in my delusion if I want to
That's a lovely delusion! I think I'll adopt it too, lol
I was thinking really the same, hopefully there's truth in this theory cuz then we have at least a small chance for a decent sims 5.
Delusional take,it is EA and they were able to take a ton of money from people....Up to 1,000 per....
They won't be doing something like that if they can.,.Even if the devs themselves wanted to put love and care in the game...They still work under someone and that with the landscape of current gaming showcases that EA will try and do the same with any newer rendition.
It also makes sense that we had such little story progression until very recently because if sims 4 was multiplayer, other players would be driving those stories along your household. This argument would work for why there aren’t many consequences in the s4 because you wouldn’t want a big event with a certain player that would disrupt another player. Okay I’ll take the tin foil hat off now
I will never understand why EA ever thought this was a great idea. If this was never meant to be a main game, what was their goal then? Why didn't they start work on a main Sims game when TS3 released in 2009? What were they going to do, when this side game failed? They absolutely had enough time to make a great game instead of this weird half game we got with 4, that didn't even have family trees at release. 🤨
Also can we stop saying that the Sims team does their best to improve the Sims game. As if that's a great excuse for the bad updates we get, like the useless story progression, all the forgotten features and broken ones, like restaurants and many more.
As a consumer I don't really care who is hired to create what EA wants for this game. The Sims "team" itself has no freedom to decide what route the game takes. Maxis is just a shell. The workers don't get enough time, resources and bad direction, by EA on top of that. It's not their fault the game is bad, and they try their best.
But it doesn't matter if they try hard to fight the big bad EA, because the game is still an expensive mess, and uses the worst consumer practices EA can get away with.
+ Saying the team does their best, gives EA some leeway in a way, because through that it sounds like the game is being improved massively and everyone is trying really hard, while it's just not. 😔
Great video none the less 🤗
Exactly, the game is the way it is because of EA. And it's not in their best interest to give customers a complete game, beacuse DLC is extremely profitable and much cheaper to make (especially kits, but really all packs at this point an indie developer could pull off). Having an old game go on forever while adding many tiny but overpriced pieces of content is all about money. It's perfect for them if we like a game enough to wish for a complete version, but never feel satisfied. Have players hope they will finally stop getting bored if only they buy this one more pack and so on, pretty much.
Jobs at EA are very popular, those chosen few to be hired are good at their job. But what can they (the vast majority) do about the direction, time and budget given..?
EA will want to impress and keep investors, which means higher and higher profit. Therefore I think it's highly unlikely they would ever give a sims game the resources required to make it a great game at launch or maybe ever. It will likely get worse, not better. The day a sims game would demand more resources instead of less, is the day they kill off the franchise and find other more profitable projects (wish I was wrong, though). However right now, TS4 is a total gold mine for them. (Sorry for poor english, not native language.)
If Windenburg was a carryover from the previous concept it would explain why the place is bigger and a little better established than later worlds. Counting community, that place has over 20 lots.
Compare the 16 in Brindleton Bay and less than 15 in Sulani and Mt. Komorebi.
I sometimes find myself wanting multiplayer in the Sims but then I realise what I really want is more spontaneity autonomy from other in-world sims
I've struggled a lot lately with feeling like I don't fit in anywhere and your videos help me find a little joy in my life. And then you just casually mention that you are asexual, like me, and suddenly I have tears in my eyes, because I feel kind of seen. So thank you Jessi, it means a lot.
Really interesting video. I'm a programmer (not games - boring business stuff) and re-using old code is almost a law. Almost as much as spending 4 years on a project that is suddenly scrapped overnight. If you have the basis of something lying around when you're working on a new project then it's really really common to take that as your starting place. Get a few old faces working on the same new project and it is almost inevitable that you will use the old code on the new project. This approach does have its problems though. Technology moves so fast that old code can come with limitations which a totally fresh project from a blank form doesn't have (at least for a while) If project Olympus was designed to be onlien in 2008, then it was working with REALLY OLD tech! That is going to present you with big problems when you try to use new ways of handling data and new UI. If this stuff is baked into the game engine, then it's no wonder they can't get basic stuff like building and character behaviour working right. As for Sims 5, my main worry is that it will be made subscription only. That's more of a trend now and it might appeal to many people who can't afford £30 now, but could manage £5 a month. That obviously costs more in the long run and is therefore more profitable. Also, if you don't keep paying then you lose everything. I only want to play solo, but I want SOME ownership of my game and something to show for the hundreds I've spent on packs.
Knowing what I do about game development and how the sims 4 runs, I think it was a combo of both project olympus and performance issues that led to stagnant lots. Lots of folks who have built pc's may not notice performance issues as much, but as someone who's primarily a laptop user and also tried sims 4 on ps4 pro and ps5 there are still SO many performance issues that just haven't been addressed. sims4 can barely run on ps4 pro, the sims 4 runs on ps5 because it is such a powerful console that brute forces it. I have to have graphic settings significantly turned down for my mid range laptop and the fans still whir like its dying trying to run the sims, along with the highest end mac book (that almost burnt my thighs lol)
It seems like project olympus was just a code name? or did i misunderstand this video?? there are SO many assets you showed that are reused/upgraded for sims 4 oh my god. either way seems like sims 4 was in production hell for a while lol, Shout Out to sims team for kicking butt. Unpopular opinion: acnh multiplayer sucks. its not worth it, the loading times are waaaay too long. trying to wait for 8 friends to come over is hell. at least it works well enough for 1 friend to come over and drop something off for cataloguing
Yep, Olympus was just the code name for Sims 4. It had always been the same game from the first leak up until the final release. They just scrapped the multiplayer aspect in 2013 and rushed to make the game as solid of a singleplayer experience as possible, not that the original main feature was gone.
And it's absolutely true about the game's performance. People tend to seriously underestimate what massive performance hogs simulation games are.
Yeah, I don't even try to play TS4 on my laptop anymore because it's so slow especially in CAS. Ironically, my Sims 3 can take forever to open but once things get started, it runs better than my TS4. I play TS4 mainly on console with XBOX one. It gets slow after playing for several hours, but other than that, no major issues.
Always figured one reason why so many features from other Sims games didn't make it into original Sims 4 was that it was intended to be an online game. Also explains the entire POV of the game: live forever, party hard, date date date -- family play was underwhelming. I won't buy a multiplayer/always online game ever. Trust EA not to screw it up? Hah!
I just want to say that I'm elated with how much freer you look lately♡ It really warms my heart that you are happier and hope it only gets better for you.
I'm here lobbying for them to make more spin off console games if they want to make something ~~different~~ no one wants to play the Sims as completely multiplayer.
BRING BACK THE URBZ 2
OMG YESSS!!
the fact that there are literally plumbobs over their heads in project olympus lol... honestly this is really interesting to me, i love seeing how things are started and it almost makes me appreciate TS4 more after seeing the development hell
Sims and History?
**stares at screen without blinking**
my two special interests in ONE it's perfect
the way the plants/trees in olympus are literally the sAmE as the sims4 basegame-
or the latter furniture and clothers/hairs :/ sims 4 really is just olympus scraps wow :0 /pos
That blew my mind, so many base game items are the same, just cleaned up a bit
I remember doing an experiment where I used my disk copy to see what was missing from launch about 2 years ago.
The map was that lifeless black and white, the family tree and ghosts were gone, and it’s honestly jarring how my teenage self focused more on, “this is the newest game, wow”. Than, “oh, where are the pools, and the toddler life stage”?
Over the years, these were added in. But, I still feel the game might have benefited from being rewritten from the ground up. And, TS5’s planned multiplayer does not quell my concerns for a repeat.
i feel like the sims franchise keeps triyng to reinvent the wheel and bring out new technologies and features, when truly we just want a simple game with a fully fleshed out gameplay, build and buy mode and also minimal lagging/glitching. like, i don't want to play multiplayer or convert photos/videos into sims, i just want them to improve what we've had since sims 2 lol
I'd hate the Sims 5 to be multiplayer. I don't even like how story progression takes away some of my control of my game. Nevermind if someone else can just come in and mess stuff up.
Ive never been able to play a sims game for longer than a minute but you manage to make me so invested in it
We had our suspicions at launch of Sims 4 that they scrambled to change an online game after SimCity absolutely bombed so it's nice to finally have solid confirmation. But yeah, like you say that's exactly why it's so worrying that they seem to be emphasizing the multiplayer aspect again with Sims 5.
Not suspicion, knowledge.
I used to watch all the sims 3 live streams the developers did and I remember they said that sims 4 was going to be multiplayer. I distinctly remember that. They later came out and said that the multiplayer aspect was going to be the gallery which confused me because then the sims 3 could also be considered multiplayer.
I'm so glad you bring the story around Cities Skylines that took over Simcity game genre, despite the fact the you're EA Games Changer. Cities Skylines and Simcity is a pretty good analogy of what might happen to The Sims, if it had a competitor.
Oh it does. I recommend looking into Paralives for that one.
Let’s see when Paralives get released :) I cannot wait !
It will have one soon, Paralives! I'm excited for Paralives to finally crush EA's monopoly and put them into a panic. The day it happens, EA might actually start putting more effort into the Sims not to lose the fandom to another game (though I believe Sims 2 and 3 fans will forever remain cause those games are definitely ones impossible to let go of).
Let's just hope it happens fast. I can't wait for some meaningful gameplay for a change. Instead of what EA considers meaningful gameplay, like my own sim telling me he found a ring and asking his own fiance through an annoying pop up, if he should propose to her and them getting instantly engaged, without any animation or logic to the whole thing. If this is what EA considers ground breaking features I don't know what is keeping this franchise alive 🤦.
Rod Humble is making his own Life Simulation too! That should be interesting for sure.
idk this makes me appreciate the developers more- as someone in a very similar field to game design, we artists have very very very little say in what is happening around us. we are just told what our assignment is, and then we do it. The fact that these artists and programmers were able to turn around the scrapped game and create something functional on release (albeit disappointing) is very impressive. I doubt anyone on the sims team WANTED this to happen. And honestly it was really smart of them to reuse things from the scrapped game, that probably saved them precious time to put something together. And again, the artists have 0 control over decisions like this. id much rather blame the game industry and EA for being money hungry and forcing artists to cut corners, than blame the people who worked their butts off to fix the problems created by those above them.
It definitely makes you appreciate the developers and artists more considering they had to redo the whole thing in just over a year after the SimCity fiasco.
I learn so many things from watching you. Thank you for the constant researching you do!
Watch job should I give Nicklos Kay from house of ashes in sims 4? Vote on with replies and likes from: Actor, Athlete, Military or Politician.
@@matthewboyajian9593 Never seen House of Ashes but I assume Military from what I googled.
@@Kaywireee House of ashes is part of the dark pictures anthology series, they are horror games where your characters stay dead.
This video style is my absolute favorite! Have you considered doing complete histories of games that aren't the Sims? Thanks for the video Joshua
I honestly don’t want to know where my mental health would be at if I didn’t have your videos. Living for your content right now hennieee.
"Who's that Pokémon?!
Windenberg."
I'm cutting veggies for dinner while watching this. Cannot wait for this deep dive, I can never get enough of the dunking on the SimCity disaster. Let's hope Sims 5 won't go down this route, we want her to survive!
What kind of veggies?
@@hope-cat4894 Peppers, tomatoes, onions and avocado for a burrito bowl :)
@@meeomelovescookiesandhisto459 Ooo, yum! 😋
@@hope-cat4894 It turned out really nice :) Hope you're having a great day!
@@meeomelovescookiesandhisto459 Same to you. :3
ahhh yes!! as a gal with autism i just want to say how inspirational you are :)) love ya
Watch job should I give Nicklos Kay from house of ashes in sims 4? Vote on with replies and likes from: Actor, Athlete, Military or Politician.
As someone who played TSO back in the day when it was still in BETA (and then a little after you had to actually pay for it).... I really don't want Sims to be online. I don't like playing/sharing my dollies with others.
The Sims 5 needs to go ham on the animations. Make everything interactive. Make there be dozens of different ways sims can interact and animate with eachother, with different contexts.
The Sims is gonna have to go nuts with this, I think, cos in the other aspects of the Sims, they are going to be outshined by other developers.
EA have this strange and weird obsession with Multiplayer ever since their upper management said “Singleplayer games are dead” (to paraphrase a bit) and recently, with their claims of “Blockchain/NFT are the future” (again, to paraphrase it a bit) I can see EA disregarding the concerns about how enforced Multiplayer for future Sims games would be bad for the series (For example, of course, Sim City. Just look how dead that series now)
The Sims 4 on launch was such a disappointment. I bought it, played it for about 2 days, then went back to Sims 3.
I didn't properly move to playing Sims 4 until the released the Vampires pack. With how much I'd hated the game before, Vampires blew me away! Although I am the kind of player who struggles without any occults.
Awesome video as always, I really appreciate the kind of work that goes in to your history videos. Your content appeals to my weird interests perfectly, where else am I going to get stuff like this 💜
Just seeing the images she shared from OG Sims 4 with the completely gray featureless map is so sad. Like, why did they release it looking like a demo?
I feel like people who think that simcity failed because of the online crap haven't played the game. It failed because it's a ✨hot steaming pile of shit✨ and even that is too much of a compliment. It literally doesn't work. Every city collapses sooner or later due to the shitty programming.
I mean I couldn't even play the game bc it got stuck in an endless cycle of updating so maybe that's why ppl don't focus on the gameplay???
@@noot-noot-pingu-noot-noot ya that happened to me plenty of times as well, had gotten real tired of uninstalling and reinstalling that shit over and over just for my cities to collapse no matter what I did.
I'm guessing the junk code from Olympus is what was hijacked to make that multiplayer mod that I've seen recently. I'm yet to try that but I'm curious about it.
I would be down for a multiplayer aspect in the Sims 5 if it was done like in Stardew Valley.
Stardew is great for what it is, but a Sims game in that vein wouldn't have any kind of family gameplay. It was the worst part of Sims Medieval.
@@BonaparteBardithion Yeah but I'm talking more about the fact that it's optional, the main game is still playable offline. But you're totally right, Sims and multiplayer are not really compatible
I feel like EA has seen games like Fortnight, and Fall Guys, and want something like that. A game people will play obsessively (even more than we play the sims now), and spend literal truckloads of money on. They've already mentioned subscription services (like seasons in fortnight etc), and I feel like I've seen mention of a store type system (replacing packs/kits with a store that rotates every day like fortnight and fall guys) They'll probably bring back sim points, etc etc etc. I also wholeheartedly believe they are forcing Maxis/The Sims Team to do this. Against their will. Which is probably why so many high profile/life long sims team members have jumped ship, and been replaced with newbies.
Firstly, it's Fortnite (battle royal game) and EA already have it's own battle royal game, Apex Legends. I think they want to make The Sims 5 more liie Animal Crossing type of game.
They already have sims online. It's just called Second life, or imvu. And, it's horrid. Concentrate on gameplay, and fk off with multiplayer.
I personally think the best way to make it """multiplayer""" is in the sorta Sims Social Facebook game way, where you actually play solo but could visit your friends houses to annoy them and stuff, obviously being a shitty Facebook game it meant you needed friends to actually get it to work but it was still kinda fun while it lasted. Taking away the main part of solo play would probably just be another miss for EA
The webkinz model! I agree!
In webkinz you had your own house and you could meet up with friends but you absolutely didn’t have to!
@@ReagannJ exactly!! And even if you decided to visit them, it didn't influence /their gameplay at all, your sim wouldn't even show up in their house and it was fun
MINDBLOWING! I always thought the nice design of the worlds was the Sims 4's only redeeming feature. I've always been a bit of an apologist for the shitty little neighbourhoods thinking that, at least, they were more attractive, interesting landscapes than in previous games. I thought they were trying something new, but turns out it was the same old set dressing from Project Olympus!
The world textures in Sims 4 look leaps and bounds better than the screenshots shown in the video from project Olympus.
A lot of people have taken this as an opportunity to hate on the sims 4 more but I think them having to quickly rush to remove the online features but still make a decent game is a good explanation for the sims 4 being bare bones. I just don’t think it’s an explanation for the sims 4 still being pretty bare bones after 7+ years. But this makes me more excited for the sims 5 since we know it’s already in development. I just hope the online will be a choice and they will use the time that the sims 4 has given them wisely.
The people making decisions for TS5 are the same ones who did so for 4 and we all know how that turned out. And they don't seem to have learned an ounce considering that they are still trying to make "online" work, instead of trying to strive for actual improvements to the gameplay depth for 5.
TS4 even after 7 years is still very much behind TS2 in terms of gameplay and the way Sims themselves function. Now we play with little dumb robots, who don't have an ounce of individualism and personality (other than looks), with bad AI on top of that. And emotions are just the most simple basic forms of the way they would manifest in a game that tries to simulate life.
It's like they forgot that the Sims matter the most, while creating 4. And the Sims haven't improved significantly in 7 years. So great that you have hope for 5, but like how? 😅😔
Okay, so the thing about only being able to control one character in a household …. Reminds me of when they said they didn’t allow controllable cats and dogs because “you can’t control your pets in real life” …. And I was annoyed because, I can’t control my toddler or my siblings, or roommates in real life either but I can in sims 😥🙄
All I want is the sims 4 life stories, pet stories and castaway stories like the sims 2
OMG I just remembered my sister playing a sims game on facebook back in the days... The Sims Social it is called. Came out around the year 2012 and it actually is a multi player game! There has to be a connection between all of those games.
I don’t know wether this should be a good sign, because the only reason the sims 4 was so shallow was bc it was made from a multiplayer game, meaning the next game should be as good as the rest but modernised. Or should I be scared bc they might try to make another online game 😭
I'm glad you brought up the lack of spin offs towards the end because like, if they'd just said Olympus was like Sims 3 online or whatever and was a spin off and not a mainline game they probably wouldn't have had to make a round peg go into a square shaped hole except.....no one (Not just EA a lot of game producers and devs do this now) don't make spin off games now and spin offs are a really cool way to experiment with the formula of a game and try and reach new audiences. Think of the popularity of Mario Party or Mario Kart. Like they could reboot the sims online or mysims and i think we'd all be happy but NOOOO you have to mess about with your main franchises! Sims Castaway, Sims Bustin out, Sims medieval were all great games that moved away from a traditional Sims format but were fun within their own right. And i understand that the main sims team has to focus on the sims but literally just outsource the developer it's a spin off it's fine
The only multiplayer aspect I’d be interested in is the ability to visit my friends’ worlds when they’re playing too and spend time with their sims. But that could only work if they’re playing the game at the same time. Aside from that, I’m an introvert and so are most of my sims. Know your audience, Sims 😂
I appreciate the examples (and notice that example images are coming, since my attention span is basically that of a breakfast muffin). So many of these TH-cam history-of docies lose me because they never do the effort to show references images (they usually just show gameplay of some game).
A+ effort. I love these!