State of The Sims (City Living)

[Carl]

City Living is pretty, that's for sure. At times it does pull off a city feel, especially with its scenery. I'm a gameplay guy though. While I'm not here to leave a scathing review about the addon, I do have freedom to say something about it due to the embargo on reviews being up as of 10AM today.

This EP is more wide than it is deep. It does indeed have a lot of little things that will contribute to everyday gameplay. However, aside from apartments, it lacks that one big thing that changes the gameplay substantially - even Dine Out does a better job BUT only if you're a person looking to run a restaurant. In a way, this wide vs deep thing is a plus, I guess because a person wouldn't run many restaurants before they got bored. You'll get a bit more life out of City Living if you do not digest its content like a teen devouring a late-night pizza with a friend. Your value will be extended by playing as you normally do only incorporating aspects of the new EP into that gameplay.

So far it is the 'Generations' of the Sims 4 addons, only not quite as involved, though it does have plenty of little things. It is seemingly meant to add a lot of ideas, but as a guy who loves Sims and writes about its gameplay mechanics, I'm a bit perturbed.

I have made pages for both the Politician Career and Singing Skill. Both are a bit shallow. Sure I know I missed a couple of things, but where are the hidden modifiers on interactions, that will make things more interesting and inject some randomness? I'll be the person who tells you straight up that protesting and gathering voters as a politician was done in a very simple manner. Maybe making votes be lost if you're caught lying, letting you cheat with donations and lose your promotion. It really is the little things.

I hope that someone from the studio, and more importantly, EA sees this post. To be honest, they probably should not be listening to the people who think the game is perfect right now, but rather the people who are distributing torches and pitchforks and complaining about it. Nah, I'm not one of them. But you are giving up on some highly valuable feedback if you do not take the words of the most angry into consideration. They are **ed off about the way the game is going because they LOVE it.

Many of the people who are working so hard on this game wish they had just a bit more money, a bit more time. But that they had 11 months to create this EP, vs the amazing accomplishments of the past, makes me wonder if they were not heavily handicapped. EA needs to give them a bigger budget and reconcile problems with the Sims community. I am hopeful to say that if the company listened, they could turn this game around the way Firaxis did with the Brave New World expansion to Civ V. It changed everything and put the game's sales into the stratosphere.

This Expansion Pack is not awful. If you are excited, I'm not trying to tell you that you should not be. I am complaining from my own position as a person who likes to find hidden mechanics and thinks the game could be made a bit more deeper than it is, and I am not alone in this. Many players find it annoying that this point has not been heard in 2 years. Depth is the single largest problem with The Sims 4, not the lack of this or that household appliance. Our membership is suffering because there isn't as much to talk about.

If you think I'm crazy to speak of the anger of the community, you've been sheltered here and I am glad to have you. Outside our borders a lot of hateful comments are left about The Sims 4, and only a massive attempt at improving our situation will change things. Some people will rattle their sabers endlessly.

While I'm being honest, you few who go to the official forums and cuss the developers and say horrible things to them destroy your arguments by your own action. I'm not criticizing the forum community, the people who do this know who they are and should be ashamed of not remembering that the people on the other side of the internet are HUMANS.

I love you, Sims community, my world was made better by befriending you. I care where the game is going. This forum is one of the most important things in my life, and writing about the Sims took me from being impoverished from childhood to the age of 29 to self-reliant at 34. I'm now able to help my family because of all the time I've spent covering 2 games over 7 years. People on this site literally changed my life. I could not tell you how impactful @Pam and @Metropolis Man were in my life, but they know as they've become my closest friends.

 We can get our message out to the Sims development team, but given the response to this EP on news sites and the official forum, I'd remind everyone to please be civil and speak in terms that another person can appreciate and understand. If you flame the people who have worked hard for you, you dispose of your own message and ensure no one will ever hear it.

I thank you if you took the time to listen. i'll be covering the EP over the next week and do my best to highlight its strengths. Not as a shill, but as a person who wants to help everyone enjoy their game a little more.

Cheers,

Carl

[oshizu]

@Carl

Thank you so much for your honesty.

Although I lack your depth of experience and insight into Sims 4, I have been saddened by the fact that many of my favorite veteran players have become bored with and estranged from Sims 4.
Quite honestly, what keeps me coming back to this game are the fantastic challenges designed by the Tournament Team and the longer challenges like the Immortal Dynasty.
I'm 100% sure I wouldn't still be playing so avidly (uh, obsessively?) if it weren't for this forum. So, a huge thank you to you and the Team for that!

Harsh criticism of The Sims 4 on this forum has been noticeably absent. Perhaps the warmth and gentleness of this forum community reflect those of you, the challenge team, and the moderators.
One thing I really appreciated is how you separated the accountability of the Sims 4 developers from that of EA. It's too easy to blame the devs for what they did or didn't do.
I'd never really stopped to think about what constraints the development team might be under.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this game and what we might do to make it better.
I'm not sure I could make any personal contribution toward that objective but I certainly support the cause of helping boost the playability, replay value, and immersiveness of The Sims 4 because I love this game to pieces.

[Candyd]

I don't really have much personal experience with the Sims 4. I didn't really want to hear about people complaining about it first, because there are always a few people who complain about the smallest changes whatever they are. But to be honest... Many things I've seen about the gameplay (or more exactly, lack of) and simplistic AI make me know that the more I'd try to play, the more it would break my heart. I've known from the start that that kind of gameplay isn't for me, because what I like about the Sims 3 and even more the Sims 2 is everything that makes them look realistic in the sims' reactions and actions, to make it short how human the sims seem to be. I find that the emotions and multitasking are fantastic concepts for improvements, but it can't be all...
I remember the same thing happening to Spore and its add-ons When the game was released, I was very active and involved in the community in my area. I was enthusiastic about the base game and defended it against people who hated it, I still love it, but I couldn't keep the same enthusiasm after the release of the add-ons. It was disheartening.
@Carl It's really a breath of fresh air for me to read this post, and I really wanted to thank you for posting this. I've always felt stuck between the people who find the Sims 4 flawless (which is fine if they love the game so much, but it's sad that a few don't want to hear about constructive criticism) and the people who think that absolutely everything is horrible about the game and insult the developers. That makes reasonable, constructive criticism very hard to hear in the middle of all those voices. I feel sorry for the developers, because they chose their career because they love their work so much, but they end up being bound hand and foot for various reasons. It must be really hard to be in that position and to receive so much hate for something they aren't always directly responsible for.
Anyway, I hope that one day, they eventually give developers the means to really work on gameplay in depth. I hope they do it in the Sims 5 if it's released. But to be honest, I'm pessimistic about it.
Just a random player's opinion...

[MissZoef]

@Carl Thank you for writing this. Just like @oshizu said if it wouldn't be for you and this awesome forum with all the challenges and nice community, I wouldn't be playing the sims 4 (much) anymore. I love the franchise and I've always played the sims, but the sims 4 is not entierly what I would've liked it to be.

However I have always been very amazed by the amounts of hate the sims 4 has gotten since the beginning. I still like it after 2 years and I am happy to have found a community where everyone can share their fun experiences and talk about the game without people spreading all the hate that already is all over the internet. But it's not that I don't understand them at all. I understand the frustration of not being heard by the devs (even though the devs probably can't do much about it) and the frustration of not getting things like toddlers, pets or seasons. People probably feel like they don't get listened to.

On the other hand I really like the exansions/ game packs they've given us so far. It's a bit different than in the other sims games and especially Get Together and Dine Out are much more fun than I anticipated. Also I really like the animations of the sims (they seem more human to me) and I reaaaallly love the way you can build houses now. Oh and even though it takes forEVER to eat something while talking to other sims and watching tv at the same time, I am a big fan of the multi tasking.

I think the main 'problem' for me with the sims 4 is, is that it seems to be targeted at a different audience? I feel like the first 3 sims games are all about having families, jobs and just living a family life. One of my favorite things about the sims 3 was the story progression in the world. The sims 4 is all about parties, staying up at night, taking selfies and very focused on the young adult life stage. I think (but that's just based on personal experience) that the 'hardcore' sim players are usually people who've been with the game since the beginning and love the generations, story telling and family life part. I'm missing that a bit more in the sims 4. Maybe that's also because toddlers are missing, but I noticed that also with the Get Together expansion pack. At least when I look at myself. When I saw the trailers it looked not fun to me at all. It seemed to be all about partying, dancing all night, getting together with friends and being a fun 'young adult'. However, now it's probably the EXP I use the most of all. I don't know anything about their marketing strategy, but this is how it feels for me. That they target a different generation/age group I don't (feel like I) belong to.

I also agree about the gameplay depth.

I am really interested to see what they will give us over the coming years. I'd much rather see them keep working on the sims 4 than releasing a sims 5 and starting at square one again. Who knows what they will do? For now I'm still looking forward to City Living, also because it gives us something new to play with

[RunAmokSims]

@Carl Thank you so much. I used to love coming here and since the advent of TS4 I have felt woefully out of place.  You see I'm one of the players who has repeatedly said that I am disappointed, miss the lack of depth and game play in TS4.  On the official forums even people who say they are disappointed  are thrown into the same basket as the rudely vocal and called negative and a hater.  Seeing that happen in the official forum I was quite hesitant to post my feelings here.

[eaglezero]

I was never into Sims 3 because it lagged horribly on every computer I ever tried it on. I like Sims 4 a lot more and actually play it, but it's missing that "it" thing from The Sims and Sims 2 that made me play them obsessively. And after reading your post I really think what it's missing is the ability to thoroughly customize your world. My Sims HAVE to live in the worlds given, which means they're living in the 21st century in one of the few environments in the game - even if I build my sim a castle, the neighbors are going to be in regular houses, not little peasant huts, or whatever. There are going to be townies wearing normal clothes wandering around. I can't make an entirely medieval world, or ancient rome, or whatever, without intrusive modern bits. And to me a lot of the neverending play occurred because when I got bored with a world, I could make an entirely new one and make absolutely everything different. The more recent games seem to lack the user customizability and lock you in more into the already-made world, and I don't enjoy that as much.

(And yes, I joined the forum solely so I could post this.  )

[Playalot]

Welcome to the forum @eaglezero    Glad to have your input.

[Pam]

Thanks for the mention @Carl.  I am still saddened that my personal situation keeps me from this Forum and the game.  It and you have had a huge impact on my life, as well.  I'm very proud of the work we did together and I'm happy to see it still standing.

[Rangervegas]

I really like this post @Carl . I've been coming here and a member of the site for many years but I totally lost all my account information and the associated email address so I had to make a new account here when I felt it was time to start asking some questions about Sims 4.

I've played probably almost all of the Sims games released, including some of the offshoots <Sims Medieval> anyone? LOL. And I believe I had almost all the add on packs for Sims 3 by the time Sims 4 came around. I remember coming here to listen to you opinion and talk to people about gameplay and advice when the Sims 4 was just a gleam in the eye of developers, and remember the endless discussions about what we thought would or wouldent be in it.

Then I remember as we got closer to game release and having some "official but not official" word about things that were or were not going to be in the base game. People finding out about missing game elements that seemed to be core to the game from longstanding tradition. Pools?? Really? Pools? OMGZ. What fun is a base game if you can't wall up your sim in a pool and drown them? LOL

And TBH Over time we've gotten several of the things that were missing at base launch for free, some as part of packs. TBH I don't really MIND the whole add on packs thing, I mean we all got kinda used to that with Sims 3, but using it to add things that should have been in the base game to begin with seems a bit shady to me. And i'm not a fan of EA by any stretch.

A bit about where i'm coming from here. I used to work for Westwood One out here in Las Vegas. And i'm sure alot of you know we created the Command and Conquer game series. I am not a developer I was just a tester for things before beta testing but as alot of you also know we were bought by EA many years ago. C&C Renegade was a mistake, i'll come right out and say that. it was a great game by itself or on a local network, but the network coding and speed of peer to peer communication at the time was just not enough to make it work well across town let alone across the country.

When we were bought by EA we got alot of promises, that turned into questions, that then turned into outright lies. And since then i've seen what EA has done with C&C and it kind of makes me sick. So most any problem Sims 4 has i'm pretty much ready to fully lay the blame and responsibility at EA's corporate feet. The company is just too big and has too much power over the gaming community to care about individual customers anymore.

The way I play Sims I think i'm probably one of the type of people Sims 4 was more geared twords. I like the way the game looks and has graphically improved over Sims 3, the new design features for individual sims, and several other things. I was never into the depth of the game the way alot of people are. But I can tell you everytime I've played the game, I can feel a certain lack of SOMETHING, something I could do in Sims 3 but I don't have in Sims 4. I think alot of it may be simply content related and since we are still a ways behind where Sims 3 got to with content, I feel like I kind of understand that lack. But I see the questions and points brought up by people like @Carl and others when something new comes out and it makes me wonder where the game is going. It makes me feel the developers are kind of being strangled by EA for budget or time constraints, and that saddens me.

I don't want to see this game fade into being a footnote in history as I do like the game for what it does have, but I feel the missing elements of the game personaly and as others express and I hope EA can listen to constructive complaints and criticism and take it into account especially when it's voiced by people like @Carl who has been around this game world delving into the depths of it to make the wonderful guides we all have on how to play aspects of the game.

Thank you for reading my book/rant TL:DR from hell.