Without any information we have to make things up, so... EA is not confident that we will take their news like whales. So, they are trying very hard to resolve contingencies to meet goals so that the news will not sound so crappy. They have a team of Backlash Reduction experts working on how the released information will be presented. This team is Pete Hines, Peter Molyneux, Julian McKinley from Creative Assembly, and Kirk Cameron, all on their lunch break. TS4 will have nice new features but the base game is not exactly like going from checkers to chess. The plan is still and will be for the dlc moolah, with such as exciting titles as TS4 Date Night, TS4 Animal Companions, TS4 Academic Acclaim, TS4 Weather Forecast, etc. In case the TS4 reception still looks ho-hum, EA will have major critic sites such as IGN hold their reviews for as long as their pockets, I mean, they can.

What, you mean pirating? That's not what I was really getting at. My brother bought it but I didn't. I just wanted to make that clear.

It shakes the confidence when 14 years of marketing and information releases suddenly changes with a new series - complete radio silence and nearly a year after announcement we are still relatively in the dark is just not the Sims way and naturally causes apprehension.

EA is running into a bottle neck for time and if they ever truly considered the fan base/customers opinions and feedback to really matter they would be releasing information by now. Maybe they are just over confident that this time we will just get what they deliver and outside opinions do not matter all that much.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's releasing info on the new Smash Bros at every chance they get. They're even holding a livestream on the 9th completely dedicated to it.

To me it looks like their dramatic change of game style, from online to offline, just screwed everything up for them. I'm more than sure they never thought of TS4 having children or elders. Otherwise we would already have previews of the other life stages. I'm sure, the game focusing on emotions and all, they would have some incredible previews of reactions from children and elders too, don't you think?

I guess they don't even know what to do, so they say "more info soon" and keep going. Who knows what really happened, but it looks like this to me. The game was going to be an online sims game with "avatars" as they called them. They had the CAS and all that but then they ditched the idea of an online game because they saw how fans complained about it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind the game having online modes, but those being optional to the actual game. I mean, having the game offline / single player, and then "maybe" being able to connect a sim of your choice with others, that would be cool (or not. I don't know).

What I mean to say is that it shouldn't be a surprise that we are seeing nothing, since they had nothing to show. So they did all this big and redundant presentation of CAS and emotions and hoped it would suffice. Obviously it doesn't. So I guess they are now working on the rest and that's why we have no news.

Sorry, it's my opinion, what I've been thinking about this. I know it's not official or anything, just my point of view on what may be happening. Honestly I'm more anxious to see what they are coming up because I think they messed up, rather than being excited about the game itself (because, anyway, we don't know anything about the game yet).

(omg you can add bacon)

Anyway ... this is really feasible. I don't know why EA decide to fix something that isn't broken... Simmers nowadays play for the legacy and the generations not for the SimPort and Online chatting.

This is what probably came down out of the original conversation of the Online motif "Oh hey lets try something new ... like an Online System that is probably not going to be better than TSO and 99% chance that it isn't going to work but you know, YOLO"

But then again this is EA...

The GDC is a specialist industry event, not a public one, and the information presented is probably fairly dry and technical - industrial, not promotional, and not really suited to "selling" or "explaining" the game to a non-developer audience. In terms of the subscription price, it seems very steep, and prohibitive to small developers, but I don't know enough to really say.

Thanks for clearing that one up for me.

I had the opportunity to go to GDC two years in a row, but passed on it read on to see why. It was if I remember correctly a student pass was nearly 100 bucks. (this was before they moved the location from Austin,TX). Pretty sure it was a special offer and you had to basically show that you're going to school in the field. Otherwise this looks like the pass prices now. $500 doesn't seem too bad if you get unlimited access to the vault. (for devs, not students i mean)

http://www.gdconf.com/attend/passes.html

Also wanna add that a lot of the people who do attend GDC are also looking to network. I knew a few classmates got their feet in the door and actually had a smaller indie company pick up their game idea.

Meanwhile, this is the character creation from an upcoming MMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TP4L1vHfpk
So beautiful
So whether TS4 was going to be online to begin with or not, there's really no need for it to have all of these limitations (removal of CASt, no height sliders, low detail objects/sims) it already seems to, from a technological standpoint, as it's obvious it can be done.

Holy shit! That is sexy

amazing character creation. :lovestruc

EDIT: apparently, the game has some kind of home decoration like the sims does.

http://youtu.be/DZc1EEAlluU?t=3m22s

Wow, those look beautiful. Not as many customization options as the Sims 3, but from an engine stand-point it's MILES above what I've seen from EA.

If you have too much ability to customize, you won't pay for store items. For instance, just the ability to move a lock of hair or add a little curl would mean less simpoints that you spend in the store.

The Sims franchise has always made their money on the fact that people will pay money for clothing and hair for their virtual dolls. If you add the ability to customize to that level, you will reduce their profits immensely.

The reason we don't have that level of customization or anything close to it is simply down to the amount of profit made by creating a simple static mesh that takes little time to create (by comparison) and will yield more profit than allowing each hairstyle to be so customizable. The ability to change things at a much more advanced level has existed for years now, though not to that extent. I'm more familiar with that video of customizing a character that came out a couple of years or so ago that blew me away at how you could customize hair, clothing, and cars. Even the new Elder Scrolls has the ability to adjust height. EA just doesn't want to give them to us because such tools would be too powerful and would leave their wallets thinner than if they charged for individual hairstyles in the store.

Due to the nature of the franchise itself, we will likely never see the customizing power as seen in that video, even in future generations of the game.

If the company developing that game from the video made a life simulator, I would switch over in a heartbeat and leave EA behind forever.

I don't know, aren't things like "Elder Scrolls" immense money makers BECAUSE of all the customization options?

Honestly? If EA gave us the customizing ability of Black Desert, the beauty of Skyrim, and life simulation (and fun Sims quirky humor) gameplay that feels complete and satisfying rather than things like burrito babies, goal-oriented gameplay, horses walking backwards, and teleporting to cars, I would not only preorder the game but also each and every expansion pack on the day of announcement.

But considering it isn't the standard model of what makes the money in the Sims franchise, it will likely never come to pass.

To be fair, MMOs require way less complex animations, so in some areas it's way easier to allow for customization. City of Heroes released in 2004 and allowed to adjust height, but it also didn't have any animations between characters.

QueenJimmy's note about hair customization hits the nail on the head, unfortunately. I would absolutely LOVE hair customization (like, seriously, that is a major selling feature to me), and with how little complexity there is to this hair, I can't imagine anything other than "we want money for hairstyles" would motivate the decision not to have it.

Oh. My. God. I must have that game! From watching the gameplay videos, that looks like it could put World of Warcraft to shame. (Though, I must say I'm a bit biased. Ever since Cataclysm came out and the devs nerfed my favorite toon's abilities, wiped all my quests, and planted me smack-dab in enemy territory on reboot, I kinda lost interest in playing the game altogether.)

I just about cried when I saw the straight-curly hair sliders.

However, I learned something about myself after watching that customization video. I actually have a line to draw between real and too real. Granted, that creation looks amazing, but the faces are just creepily real. I mean, check out the eyes. It's like someone cut and pasted them from a photo. I can stand the ultra-realism in games like Beyond: Two Souls and The Last of Us. But, yeah, I guess that's my line. No photo-realistic faces.

Whoa!

I still don't grasp why people have a problem with this. I'd love to be able to make sims look like real people.

Yepp, it's a life-simulation so why shouldn't it look like real? I really don't like the cartoony style as it seems to me like "we don't have to improve too much to make money". Growing hair has to be enough improvement for TS4 so in 2030, when Windows 8 is obsolete, Sims 6 might have adjustable hairstyle as this will be sooo obsolete that EA would have other things to sell in the store. Guess I might be interested in SIms 6, if it wouldn't be a kind of point'n'click adventure...

Realistic sims would be creepy when they break the fourth wall. Or I think they would be. Imagine yourself playing in the dark at 3 AM and suddenly Amanda or Ron whichever sim you're playing just randomly looks at you with these soul-less dead eyes.

I'd run out of the room screaming.

Well then people who feel the way you do could simply avoid making sims that look like people they know. Others of us might avoid making people we care about but might well make ones that look like our most hated politicians etc

Not only that, but it would create competition.
It would force EA to make/improve the sims to keep customers, instead of just focusing on how to squeeze as much money out of us instead. They are pretty much free to do as they like the way it is now.

But I guess that will never happen.

I wish Sims had high-quality competition. There are a handful of games that provide some competition but most aren't at the same level. From what I've seen, most are at a basic Sims 2 or Sims 1 level.

And speaking of realistic sims... with the Black Desert level of customization, wouldn't you be able to create cartoony looking sims on your own OR realistic looking sims? Seems possible, from what I could tell from the video. It's likely that they were just sticking to the semi-realism because that's what a lot of RPGs go for these days.