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Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
14-06-2014, 01:37 AM (This post was last modified: 14-06-2014 01:47 AM by Ollie.)
Post: #11
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer



Alexis from SimsVip has got a video for her interview with SimGuru Graham up.

I really do find it strange how they didn't go for a fully open world like The Sims 3, but instead have five (six, if you count the large park lot they have). I don't mind it, and with all of this, I hope it makes for better performance, all these changes better be worth it, I mean I don't mind the changes, but I just hope that they improve the game as a whole.
That being said, in one of the earlier threads I believe I mentioned that too me, because of The Sims 3's open world, your Sim's homes, just didn't really feel as homely as they did in The Sims 2/1 (if you can kinda get what I mean). So I hope that with The Sims 4's district feature, combing a bit of The Sims 2 and 3, I get that feeling I had in The Sims 2 back.

I have a feeling that the city we can see in the background of Willow Creek in some screenshots and some videos may play into where sims go after they leave the neighbourhood/district/whatever (I don't even know anymore). He mentioned that there will be some interesting surprises, so I have hope that maybe, just maybe, their workplace may act as a mini "district" and show them working, at'd be cool.
Although at the same time I must wonder where kids/teens go for school and what about teen part time jobs, E3 has just left me with more questions.

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14-06-2014, 01:39 PM
Post: #12
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
Every time we get more information, it feels like less lol!

I do appreciate that the fully open neighbourhood of TS3 may have been the cause of some of the performance issues. Splitting a large semi-open world into a few zones and having loading between these seems a reasonable compromise, as long as the loading times are short and as long as the compensation for the reintroduction of loading times will be better performance. We will see whether that happens.

I read a transcript of the interviews conducted with that Graham bloke on Honeywell's site, which I prefer, and found some of it bizarre. For example "The Sims 4 doesn’t have “districts”. We have a world (Willow Creek), and within that world is five distinct neighborhoods that all have a different feel to them". You can call the different areas "districts" or you can call them "neighbhourhoods", what does it matter? It would be less confusing if everyone was using the same terminology but whether you say "districts" or "neighbourhoods" does not add to nor lessen the confusion - the fact is that there are a bunch of different zones within one world and that travelling between different zones incurs loading screens. It was also stated that there would be loading within neighbourhoods/districts/zones/whatever, by walking out of a lot/building/whatever and into the "public spaces". So more loading than I first thought.

Some actual solid facts that were revealed were that there are five zones with buildings, plus a big park that kind of counts as a sixth zone. Each of the five zones with buildings can have five built-on lots of either residential or commercial type. So a maximum, therefore, of 25 buildings in the world, some of which are commercial? That doesn't seem very big. If you want the majority of available commercial lots to be included then that doesn't leave a lot of houses. In addition there are "public spaces" with usable objects on, so I'm assuming this is the space between buildings, but you incur loading times to get there. I don't consider this "new", it just sounds like when you send your sim in TS3 for a stroll and along the way they can pick up seeds or rocks or do a bit of fishing and so on, between specific lots.

He did talk about rabbit holes and it would seem that there won't be any. Given how many people disliked the rabbit holes, I suppose that is a good thing. However it sounds as though you can't necessarily follow your sims to work or school. He mentions "We don’t have rabbit holes in the traditional sense anymore. If you’re going off to your job for the day? You’re going to walk off the edge of the neighborhood and then they’ll come back later that night". So that sounds like TS2-style but now you might be able to watch other stuff happening around the lot while sims are at work.

Still no news on pools, because obviously it is terribly challenging to simply say "yes they will be in but we have no pictures yet", "no we are not adding them to the base game" or "we have not yet decided". And no information on babies other than they will have legs.

One thing I did like (yes one thing!) was that they have split up the cooking skill into homely and gourmet. That makes sense I think.
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15-06-2014, 02:51 AM
Post: #13
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
Currently the main and only dissapointment I have with The Sims 4 is the load times between lots. I'm hoping that just means it takes time to render out buildings like in The Sims 3, but there is a lot of confusion, they haven't clearly specified if it's an actual load screen or what. If it's a load screen, than that is just dissapointing, not a deal breaker, but annoying and if we could get open worlds in The Sims 3, I don't understand why we can't have open worlds in The Sims 4, or even have open neighbourhoods (I don't understand why they want them to specifically be called Neighbourhoods?) with a MAXIMUM of 5 lots (According to Graham Nardone) per Neighbourhood and at this point in time only 5 neighbourhoods with one extra large lot park, making for at most 26 lots in Willow Creek, but who knows, that may change (hopefully). Like seriously I can understand load screens between districts, but if we have to go for a load screen between lots, even in the same neighbourhood, just why? They haven't been the best at stating wether it's an actual load screen, or if the lot itself just needs to render and load.
If the game is this closed off, there may as well just not be neighbourhoods (districts) in the game, but instead go out and say it's like The Sims 2, with a completely closed off world.

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15-06-2014, 03:49 PM
Post: #14
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
The upside I see with the loading screens is that I won't have to deal with textures that aren't rendering properly. I still get that sometimes despite the fact that I'm now playing TS3 with a higher-end PC.
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16-06-2014, 08:36 AM
Post: #15
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
I've seen slow texture rendering while watching videos of the developers who made TS3 - I think you'd need some kind of supercomputer to never experience that! It would be nice if that didn't happen.

The loading screens in TS2 were OK, at least for me they were only a few moments, but I wouldn't really like to give up the fully open neighbourhood now that I've got it. I really like being able to take a stroll and being able to zoom around seeing what's happening elsewhere while my sim is doing something less interesting like sleeping or reading a skill book for hours on end.

I am not sure that in TS4 there will be loading screens as such. They just refer to "there will be a load", so perhaps the game just pauses for a moment or something. Someone at E3 reported that words came up on the screen during "the load", though, so that does sound like some kind of screen.

Oh who knows!
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18-06-2014, 12:00 PM (This post was last modified: 18-06-2014 12:38 PM by Caspin.)
Post: #16
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
The latest news is that the "public spaces" between the lots will not be editable at all. So you cannot add or remove the usable objects in those areas, nor change the style of those spaces. I guess this is similar to the way in TS3 you can easily edit any residential or community lot, but need to use CAW if you want to make substantial changes to the rest of the space, other than adding a tree or something simple.

Also it is confirmed that there will be a Store (was there any doubt?!) offering content for the game. Well, they're going to need some way to sell the pools aren't they! Biggrin
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18-06-2014, 05:01 PM
Post: #17
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
The loading screens between districts is what killed it for me. I'll put up with loading screens if it was for rabbitholes that took the player into useable space, but not for a repeat of TS2. You can get away with that for games with fantastic resource hogging graphics, not for this Lego hair lumpen mess.

Egyptiandance Wacko Fryingpan

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18-06-2014, 07:39 PM
Post: #18
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
Slight fiasco a short while ago - apparently some fans had been invited to various secret events to play the actual game on 1st July, but were told not to disclose this information to anyone and so dutifully kept quiet - until today when EA cancelled the events. Terribly disappointing for those invited and worrying for those hoping to buy this game and desperately wishing for some actual gameplay footage instead of these ridiculous, scripted trailers they keep showing.
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21-06-2014, 03:34 PM
Post: #19
RE: Sims 4 release confirmed 2nd September + final trailer
Please let this be the weirdest thing I read today! From Honeywell's site, quoting from an article in 'PC Powerplay' magazine:

"The cow plant will be returning, with a new taste for feelings. We believe it will eat emotional states, possibly along with the person, and create an essence your Sim can then drink, strategically."

It will eat emotional states. It can create an essence that can be drunk. Strategically? So, the cow plant is going to suck up your sim's emotions, then piddle them out as a beverage? I am so lost.

Dizzy-1
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