The Sims 4 Discussion - Share your Opinion on TS4 and Gameplay Features

[Bri]

Twallan is no longer making mods.  Some of the members over there took over with the updates and Nraas mods.

I keep reading about players opening Origin and it's magically there, no such luck for me... I keep trying. 

At least Maxis seems to be embracing the modding community much more this go around.  They are going to have a specific folder for mods, for example. 

Whether someone does what Twallan did...we shall see. 

[Twinmum]

I followed up looking at SimSupply's photos with looking at some of his videos, including one from his second day at Creator's Camp. As a builder, I'm dissapointed there will be no terrain tools, move object cheat or constrain floor elevation cheat to start with, but look forward to all the new possibilities available to builders.

[KhaineGB]

Finally got to play with the CAS demo...

Better than I expected... by a lot.

[Seabody]

Whether someone does what Twallan did...we shall see.

When there are modders, there will always be great modders. Someone will step up to the plate, it's just a matter of who and when. And, somewhat how easy the game is to mod, if it's difficult it'll take longer for good mods to appear.

[Twinmum]

James (Flabaliki from Sims Supply ) said that they had a lesson on modding at Creator's Camp, so maybe someone that was there wil come away with some ideas..

[Rad]

Hi all

Feels a bit cheeky to be logging in for the first time in a long time - so long that my account had been deactivated and I had to start again 

Forgive tagging onto this thread but I guess I'm too n00b to start my own at the moment!

As some of you know, as well as being a simmer, I have an alter ego as a Principal Lecturer in Media at Sheffield Hallam University, and part of my job involves lots of different kinds of research relating to different aspects of the media. Some of you may remember, a couple of years ago, completing surveys and interviews for me for some research I was doing on Sims fans. Some of those findings are in a paper I presented at the Internet Research conference last year (slides here, short paper here), some aspects were mentioned in a paper I co-authored in Participations journal. I have also written an article using these findings which will be published in the journal Transformative Works and Cultures next year and have another 2-3 articles in progress.

Given the release of Sims 4, I wanted to use this opportunity to gather player opinions on the new game, both before and after its release, and so I'm asking anyone who can to fill in two short(ish) anonymous surveys relating to the game. The pre-release survey is now live and I would appreciate you recirculating the link so I can get as many people as possible to complete it (I had around 1.5K responses last time - thanks all!): http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/298684/lang-en

The second survey will be posted after the game is released (probably within the first week rather than on the day of release as I'll need to discover what its features actually are so I can create appropriate questions). I'll post reminders when it goes live, but the address is: http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/549839/lang-en Please note, this survey and its follow-up are entirely anonymous.

If you want any more details, you can email me: [email protected] or visit my website. Thanks!

 :hugs:  :drinks:  :thup:

[Naria]

Hi Rad, I think there's a small issue with the format of a question in your survey.

It asks about how many store content items you have and it's formatted like this:

                     All       Some    None
All
Some
None

For instance, I own All and I checked All, under the All... but it wanted me to check off in the Some and None category too.

Wow, that was so poorly explained but I don't know how else to put it! I hope you understand what I'm getting at. 

 

[McHazy]

I keep reading about players opening Origin and it's magically there, no such luck for me... I keep trying. 

It seems like the watchers were watching me last night. After I said that I still didn't have the demo, it magically appeared in Origin this morning! (Sorry Bubbles!). It is so much fun to use, not a lot of clothing, hairstyles etc but I imagine as it is only a demo there will be more to play with come 5th September!

[Bri]

For those curious about modding, there was another small announcement today.  I have a link here:
http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,15902.msg380257.html#msg380257

In summary, it seems they are embracing the modding community this time around such as having a special folder for customized content.  Additionally, they say they will have a guide out to help modders understand some of the files, etc. Finally, they are going to have a dedicated section in their forums for modders to talk.

[KhaineGB]

If they make modding easier than Sims 3 (which requires knowing a programming language), I might have a snoop.

[Playalot]

Finally got to play with the CAS demo...

Better than I expected... by a lot.

Got to agree, it is so much easier to make your sims look pretty near exactly how you envision.  I easily spent an hour or so making just one sim, so the afternoon just whizzed by. Yet another way to suck up my time, my poor husband only ever gets to see the back of my head as I stare intently at the screen 

[KhaineGB]

I spent about 30 minutes making a sim and I was very impressed with just that!

I'm going to try a brother/sister combi next. I'd really like to re-make Matt and Anna, but the lack of Witch and Fairy makes that... a bit difficult.

[ZoeLou]

I have loved playing with CAS, it's made me very excited for the game!

But.... It makes me sad because I want to play with my sims already!

Also, I'm feeling very deprived at the lack of gameplay videos that have been recorded with the UI ON! So many people who were at creators camp chose to leave it off, and while I get that it makes the video easier to view, I am just as interested in the UI and what's going on there as I am to see what the sim world looks like.

----> Insert sad face here

[Turoskel]

Still very much sitting on my fence with this, the baby object almost made me fall off on the no buy side but I've just been reading Pinstar's articles and well it's the most normal descriptions of gameplay mechanics I have seen, the kind of useful explanations Carl generally provides with his guides, no weirdness just how it works, well worth reading and I shall be checking back for his continuation of his legacy game post.

http://www.simslegacychallenge.com/category/sims-4-news/sims-4-creators-camp/

It's the first thing that has given me real hope that there is still some challenge and you can play legacy/dynasty style with a few changes, still not happy about the life stages though so I better get comfortable on my fence for a bit longer 

[Rad]

Hi Rad, I think there's a small issue with the format of a question in your survey.

It asks about how many store content items you have and it's formatted like this:

                     All       Some    None
All
Some
None

For instance, I own All and I checked All, under the All... but it wanted me to check off in the Some and None category too.

Wow, that was so poorly explained but I don't know how else to put it! I hope you understand what I'm getting at. 

 

About the mistake in the survey - not sure what happened there, it was meant to be worlds, lots and items/sets.  Gah.  I had beta testers run the survey and tell me it was all fine as well!  Unfortunately the software doesn't allow you to edit questions while the survey is live, which it will be until the post-release survey goes live (hopefully the first week of release)

Responses have been great so far - quite polarised, but that's what I'd expect.  Loads of great comments.  Initial research is going to be presented at a conference in Sept so I'll make the slides available.  Latest is I might be writing a book about Sims fans and EA rather than just a couple of papers, but will keep everyone posted.