Not to pick your post apart, but I think there are some things that personally I'm just a bit tired of hearing all the hate about, so I just wanted to point out a couple of things in your post.
<snip>
The main features that I miss are:
- Obviously a swimming pool but I believe it's pretty clear that everyone misses that one
No, actually I don't miss them at all. In fact, I just was playing Sims 3 before Sims 4 came out and my elder sim, who had retired, did absolutely NOTHING but play in the pool all day long and all night long (needless to say he had a lvl 10 in Athletics after all that before he finally croaked off). My nitpick here is the term "everyone". Not "everyone" misses them.
- The colourpanel, though I understand they left this out for better rendering purposes.
Was not about rendering at all actually, was about load times. When you have that many options and that many lists to sort through on a computer system, it is bound to get bogged down. Whether it's online or built into the client itself, it will always eventually bog down. You could see it when you hit Materials as it slowly sorted them out, and the fact it had to reload each list as you changed back and forth was intense, and this on a new Alienware with SSD drives, while the CAST was great, it was not a optimal solution for the game. Color wheel was never a problem, but if they removed one part, and left the other, they still would have never heard the end of it. Although the color wheel is probably the least intensive bit of CAST, they opted to pull the entire thing. I understand that decision from a software design perspective. I also grasp that this game was not originally intended to be just PC, and it was changed mid way.
- Community lots like the school, the hospital, the police department and the city hall. Even though they were rabbit holes in the Sims 3, I liked to use their exterior for story purposes. I also don't like how small the worlds are. I guess they did that for better rendering purposes as well, but the worlds in Sims 3 like Monte Vista are so stunning to look at from a far... it's a shame that now we can only look at our own little neighbourhood. I also don't like that all the lots seem to be fixed, although I have to admit I didn't really check the world manager that closely yet.
I really don't miss them that much. I was just thinking about this in fact with my Sims 3 game in University as my kids went through Graduation (and as high schoolers previously) that it's just a big rabbit hole, I don't get to SEE their graduation, I just hear some sim drone on endlessly then they come out and yay? I don't think the lots are gone permanently, I think it's a matter of seeing how best to incorporate those back into the game and in what function since they've said NO rabbit holes. Which personally, if that means no more hospital, or police department, or city hall, I'm good with. I hate, hate, hate and did I mention hate, rabbit holes with a wicked passion.
While Monte Vista and others were beautiful to look at, I never felt they were "alive" if you will. I would go to locations and maybe have another sim or 2 there, and that would be it. No massive life wherever I went.
- A dishwasher. Even though you can just drag dirty plates to your sink or trashcan, it just feels silly that a million dollar house doesn't have a dishwasher.
I can skip on dishwashers for the moment. I let my sims clean their dishes in the sink as that's pretty realistic for me, so that means I don't do the whole throwing them in the trash. I get your point on dishwashers in a million dollar home, but right now, with all my breakables on the lot, it would just be one more thing to repair/replace. So hopefully they make a come back, but it's not a game breaker situation to me.
- Toddlers. They were the most adorable thing in Sims 3 and I was completely addicted to taking screenshots of these little monsters. The fact that my first sims 4 baby was also a glitched demonbaby didn't really help either.
Toddlers are a really mixed bag for people. I hated them in TS3. There are a lot of people like myself that just did the bare essentials to get them walking, talking and potty trained and then aged them up. I never thought there was enough "rambunctiousness" or things for them to get into to make them worth playing. As a mom of 2, I don't say this lightly as I was not fond of my toddlers back then when they got into things and prayed for the whole age to pass through as quickly as possible.
- The lack of maternity leave or vacation days. Especially the fact that these two features are so simple and do not effect rendering at all make me wonder why they left it out. It almost feels like they... forgot about it?
I worked all through both my pregnancies in real life, I always thought "forced" maternity leave in the game was a bit sexist. I did do my FMLA for after the births, for 6 weeks, which was unpaid time off but that was MY choice, and one I could afford to do. Now, I have not played with NOT going to work in the game after giving birth, but then I really don't need to as I can age them up right to kids and get on with sim life again. Which of course, breaks realism, I get that, but I really like the non forced maternity leave aspect.
- Fire that works normally. I had a fire with a fire alarm installed and it all made so much noise that my game crashed completely. I had to turn off the sound to be able to continue playing and it took me around 20 mins to get the game started again. Also the fire department didn't show up even though I had an alarm installed. My sim was luckily able to extinquish the fire herself. By doing this, she actually stepped into the fire herself but didn't get burned. All of this just didn't feel right to me.
Haven't had a fire yet, so I can't express anything on this although in Sims 3, my sims would also "walk into the fire" to put it out as well and would be ok usually.
<snip all the great stuff>
Still, dispite these good things, for me the game just misses out a little bit too much to call it an 'enhancement' compared to the Sims 3. Sequels should always feel like a step forward, but this one definitely doesn't feel like that at all. I actually got 'homesick' to Sims 3 while playing Sims 4 and started up my old game again. Hopefully, expansion packs (please come soon!) will be the solution to this.
I think this sums up the problem in a nutshell. Everyone expected this to be an "enhancement". I didn't. As much as I adore TS3 for it's big beautiful open world, the wonderful things they could bring to the expansion packs (I loved them all, seriously), I never felt as if my sims were "alive". They were mini robots I had to direct every aspect of their lives every minute. Compared to Sims 2 and 1, that was just unrealistic to me. I loved letting my sims go and see what trouble they could get into, in Sims 3, that was gone. This was also a problem with the outrage from Sims 2 to Sims 3. I didn't go into Sims 3 thinking it was an "enhancement" to Sims 2. So many of the things I loved about Sims 2 was permanently gone from Sims 3, but I went into Sims 3 with the idea that it was it's own separate concept from Sims 2, different platform style of playing, and then I was ok with it. But as I played Sims 3, I just got bored. My total play time on Sims 3 as per my Origins account is now only 430 hours. My hours for Sims 4 is already over 50.
I was having a blast last night, just letting my sims do their own thing. I had a dinner party going on, hubby came home grumpy and needing fun, decided to have fun with their two little boys, while my sim hosted the ladies for dinner... next thing I know, my little girl is off over at the park babbling to people and finding out about them. I had no idea she had even left the house until I got a notification that she had discovered Johnny Cheney was "mean". Next morning, all three kids got up at exact same moment, and to my surprise, they all went hugging each other. My reaction was, hey, you wanna come to my house and teach my two teenagers this familial love thing?
I think the biggest issue, is that EA really tried to give people what they thought they wanted in TS3, which was open world, better graphics, etc. But a lot got lost in that (mainly the "life" of the sims) transition. So if you're someone who loves to absolutely control every aspect of your sims, TS3 was an "enhancement" and "more realistic" than Sims 1 or 2. But I fell in love with Sims 1 and 2, not because I love to control every aspect of them, but because of what they would do when I wasn't controlling them.
And just as a last note on that, when Will Wright developed the Sims, it was originally because he was working on the pathing code of avatars. All the other stuff that eventually made up Sims 1, was to entertain himself while he experimented with the pathing code, to watch what kind of crazy stuff they would get into. That was the real heart and intent of Sims 1.
