The Sims 4 Guide

[Carl]

I will begin production of The Sims 4 Guide within the first week of release, with the help of both Pam and Metropolis Man. Our team was able to produce a Guide that was rather successful, helping tens of thousands of Simmers. We're hoping to repeat that by providing quality Guides for the game using the same formula. For now, I have summarized Known Gameplay Features of The Sims 4, taking information from officially released videos and press releases. As new information arises, I will attempt to update the page here and there. I only want to use official EA info to produce it, so will have to wait on more info and summarize from that. For people who are behind and do not know much about the upcoming game, this should be enlightening. If you've stayed on top of every bit of info, you probably know more than I.

I will now wrap up my Civ 5 Guide, then take a vacation before we begin production on the new game. It will be a long period of work for the team, because we're sure to be hit by an Expansion before we've wrapped up Vanilla. I want to cover everything in the game, so that will take some time.

When September gets here, we'll move the Forum to the new address and start a new category for Sims 4 discussion. No one will need to change anything, as the entire Forum will be automatically forwarded to carls-sims-4-guide.com, just as when we moved the forum from its own domain to join with the Guide.

For now, Comments on the new page are open. There is a pre-order link there for anyone who would like to support our efforts.

[Pam]

The page is awesome!!  I put it up on Facebook. 

[Dellena]

Looks great!

I was reading through it and saw the following:

While TS3 did allow height adjustment of windows etc.

How do we adjust window height in TS3?  Have I missed something all this time?  I know certain lights and pictures can be adjusted.  I didn't know windows could be adjusted.

[Pam]

Looks great!

I was reading through it and saw the following:

How do we adjust window height in TS3?  Have I missed something all this time?  I know certain lights and pictures can be adjusted.  I didn't know windows could be adjusted.

I'm not remembering that, either.  There were some windows that went all the way to the top and all the way to the floor, but that's the way those windows work.  They could go high or low, but that's all they could do.  Maybe we've been missing something all along.

[Teacup Chihuahua]

Wow thanks for this Carl! Really can't wait (we will get Sims 4 on September 5th in the UK)

[Metropolis Man]

Fantastic, Carl! Willow Creek looks beautiful and I cannot wait to dive in and write some Guide articles.

[Carl]

Looks great!

I was reading through it and saw the following:

How do we adjust window height in TS3?  Have I missed something all this time?  I know certain lights and pictures can be adjusted.  I didn't know windows could be adjusted.

Maybe I'm just thinking of paintings? I know you can hold a button and adjust those, so my memory was saying the same was true with windows. At that, I'll edit that out.

[simfulicious]

Great page, Carl!  I ordered from the link!  I was gonna wait and buy the Sims 4 after it went it on sale, but your guide convinced me that I will not be able to wait for that to happen before wanting NEEDING to get my hands on it.

[Turoskel]

Very nice summary page, I'm still on the fence at the moment so I have been trawling the official forums this past week during E3 looking for info to tip me over, it's a minefield of misinformation and supposition with a few facts thrown in, this is why I love the guides so much, they are clear and consise and full of hints and tips and I come away feeling like I learnt something rather than just feeling confused.

I look forward to reading the in's and out's of Sims 4 via the guide, it has helped me immensely with the Sims 3.

[Carl]

Great page, Carl!  I ordered from the link!  I was gonna wait and buy the Sims 4 after it went it on sale, but your guide convinced me that I will not be able to wait for that to happen before wanting NEEDING to get my hands on it.

Really appreciate that! I hope the game turns out as good as we're all hoping, but think Maxis has a good grasp on the desires of its fans, at least for the most part. I haven't really seen anything that wholly disappoints me, so I'm feeling confident that I myself will enjoy it. I'm looking forward to seeing the User Interface soon, as that might reveal a lot more about the game.

I'll try to update the page at least 2-3x between now and release so that people can get fairly up to date information without too much speculation about how things will work.

[Magpie2012]

So if the Forum is just going to move over, does that mean that any stories and such that exist here for TS3 will be able to continue? I've been playing around with a story idea in my head but I don't want to post if it's not going to be able to continue (it takes me ages to get through each generation). I really can't afford TS4 at the moment (maybe not even for the first year or more) so I hope this Forum still lets me get my TS3 kicks... Although I will be living vicariously through all of you who will have TS4 and (hopefully) be able to read lots of stories!

P.s Hope I didn't put this comment/post in the wrong thread...

[Joria]

Carl, your factual representation and screenshots of Sims4 did the trick.  I used the link and pre-ordered!  I wasn't going to.  I really was sitting on the fence, mostly because there is still so much more for me to learn and enjoy with Sims3, but you sold me and that was before watching the videos.  Thanks so much for the info.  I look forward to all there will be in the Sims4 forum to come.

[Aliena]

Personally, I will wait until eaxis is done with the expansions, and see if the game still works. Until then, I will keep playing sims 3, which I had to stop updating at supernatural, because the expansions after that were not only overly cheaty, but were terribly demanding on my computer, and broken (error 12 each time I tried to save, even on fresh worlds).

[Carl]

So if the Forum is just going to move over, does that mean that any stories and such that exist here for TS3 will be able to continue? I've been playing around with a story idea in my head but I don't want to post if it's not going to be able to continue (it takes me ages to get through each generation). I really can't afford TS4 at the moment (maybe not even for the first year or more) so I hope this Forum still lets me get my TS3 kicks... Although I will be living vicariously through all of you who will have TS4 and (hopefully) be able to read lots of stories!

P.s Hope I didn't put this comment/post in the wrong thread...

Yes, The Sims 3 Forum will continue to operate as usual, and all topics will just move to the new site. You can feel free to move forward with your story. All posts on the Sims 3 Forum will remain and we're sure to still see new topics pop up as the game will still be popular for several years.

@Joria: Glad I could help you make a decision. I look forward to more info being out and editing that page to provide clarification on how those things will work. It is definitely helping me prepare for writing for TS4 to maintain that page and know what will be in the game. Thanks for using our pre-order link, I appreciate it!

@Aliena: I understand how you feel. I think it's natural for a lot of people to want to wait. After all, it's not like the Expansions are even old at this point. Some people have never played some of them and Into the Future is not even a year old. It'll be some time before The Sims 3 stops being popular, just because it is the game that has the most features right now. The same happened with TS3 when people were transitioning to 2. Eventually some new Expansion comes that makes it hard to pass up, and the price of the base game will drop, leading to a surge of new players.

Sorry for the slow response guys, been a busy man lately.