People underestimate the other uses of phonebooks besides phone numbers. Often the ones here have menus for places as well as info about every doctor or dentist listed. The menu thing is important because, believe it or not, most smaller non-franchise restaurants don't have an online menu.

Well, if they'd like to market this as a bill-management game, and reduce the price to something that is normal for a 2D strategy game, I might buy. Afaiac they can't sell this game to me as a 3D human society simulation cos the 3D physics doesn't work properly or look right, and the sims don't make any attempt to behave like real people.

I just want to make it clear that that was not the point I was trying to make. I'm currently doing some preparational courses so that I can get a bachelor in programming. And I'm a woman. So obviously I don't think that games directed by women will automatically end up in fluffy, "let's sit in a circle and hold hands" games. If I ever end up directing a video game (yea right) it won't be a typical machismo shoot things up kinda game, but it sure as hell won't be pink sparkly overload either.
What I said before was meant as a joke, but I can see why some may have misinterpreted my intentions

Well I still think there is something in it, but I am not sure by what means, and my ponderings definitely are not along the lines of "women are stupid". Somehow men and women are still more different than just what they have in their pants, and it's very complex. It may be not so much what we're capable of as in some cases what we're conditioned to think we should be like; and obviously some people are more compliant with social conditioning than others.

Just watched most of the two LP videos. Build mode looks good as far as I'm concerned, but I've never been a star at building and am never able to create something as beautiful and elaborate as the more talented builders out there. So I think building is alright for the more casual builders, but I'm not sure what the die hards think of it. It does look like you get some more options to play with, like shaping the roof and the different window heights and such. The auto window option didn't look good, though.

Gameplay didn't impress me at all, and I was really shocked by the clipping issues. When the Landgraab (?) kid went to sit on the same spot as the other sim on the couch my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I can deal with fingers occasionally going through a counter or something like that, but this degree of clipping is outrageous. How is it possible that a sim goes to sit in an occupied spot? I guess because the Malakai guy was about to stand up the spot no longer registered as being taken?

Did someone who produced Facebook SimSocial also work as a producer on this game? If so I blame them for the sloppy routing and animations. Still remembering with hilarity how when you woohooed with another sim in that game, they'd both get into bed, then quickly jump out and stand watching while the bed bounced up and down enjoying itself .

I agree that there are some differences between the sexes. I read somewhere that there has been studies who showed that boys develop a three dimensional field of depth at an earlier age than girls, while girls can see more colours than boys, both of which makes sense from a hunter/gatherer perspective. (ED: Of course, everything read on the internet is potentially bullshit. I haven't bothered to check if it's a bullshit study, so take it for what it is)
But yeah, the majority of differences are social conditioning. The only reason a lot of boys hate the colour pink is because they've been told that it's an icky girl colur, and so on.

Maybe the Sims would benefit from getting split into two categories. Sims jr. and Sims for the grown ups. Then the kids could have their happy dreamland, while the rest of us could have a more mature Sims game where yelling and woohoo skills are allowed. Except they'd probably screw that up too, by filling it up with "grown up stuff" (read: blood, explosions and titties) or something.

ED: Uh, apparently I said something wrong there. Is it the gender stuff? Oh well, it is a pretty sensitive topic..

I just have to rant.

The one thing that was advertised heavily about Sims 4 is how smart they have become. All we saw in the video stream yesterday was a bunch of Sims constantly moving around and not really following commands. The worst was the fight…Sims just carry on their own business while the fight was happening. No reaction at all. I would believe that it would be the same when the object baby turns into a child. There won’t be any reaction from the parents. Just how smart is that?

I went over to the official forum and people caught how unaware of the surroundings the Sims are. Of course, then come the defenders of the game saying that: 1) they don’t care about fights in their game anyway 2) Sims are so evolved mentally that they don’t care about stupid things like fights 3) if they saw a fight in the bar, they won’t care either 4) I don't care about other sims than my own sims!!!!

For every valid critique, there are many people jumping to defend how they don’t care about this and that feature. I believe if the CAS demo was packaged as a strong foundation of Sim 4, and sold as a game, people will still buy the game.

Why are there so many people defending the game? I understand the omission of features that are not “promised” to us. But advertising Smart Sims with emotions and how they are actually feeling things and showing us a bunch of sims who are simply awkwardly moving around and sitting on top of each other is just bad...

It amazes me how much crap we consumers are willing to take when something is new and shiny. It’s no wonder companies like EA just don’t bother anymore. While Simscity 2013 was an epic fail during launch, it still manages to be one of the top selling game that year.

I weep for the future of Sims (and mankind)….yes...I am dramatic...

As far as I remember Ms Rachel came from EA Mobile, so it wouldn't surprise me if she came with other people from there to set up the TS4 team.
Edit: This is one thing about her online, mobile past from before TS4:




NB: While trying to find more about her past experience, I stumbled across this little essay of hers: Breaking Past Stereotypes to Influence Future Generations

Could this be EA's new theme song? (I know it's dangerous to bring up that cartoon here on the internet, but I had to)
I don't get the "Yea well I didn't care about that feature anyway" reasoning either. What's that got to do anything? I personally never touched terraforming, but that doesn't mean I think it's no big D that they got rid of it. What's most baffling is that so many people use that excuse for what possibly might be the biggest removal of them all - toddlers. "what where they good for anyway? yea nothing" "This game doesn't need toddlers they were just in the way." Uh.. What?! I always try to explain to them that taking out toddlers is as nonsensical as if they had taken out adults and had teens go straight to elders.
But that usually results in them telling me what a pathetic buzzkill nerd I am. You just can't with some people.

Did anyone manage to tell if Dina Caliente was a teen? i suppose she is a teen and her surrogate mother is an adult, but i honestly can't say for sure. Parents and sons will never properly look right on this game...

These are people who have never been present at a bar fight.

It's not something you can ignore.

Pretty dangerous even if you're not involved, as things and people start flying about.

I'm in Aus too and have a stack of large phonebooks but no phone line

Just curious what is the difference between the Limited Edition and the Premium Edition? I mean really, who in there right mind is going to pay 80 bucks for a $10 game...

I think she was an adult. Wasn't Ryan trying to put the moves on her?
But how are you even going to tell adults apart from teens? I can imagine it's gonna be really annoying when looking for a partner for your sim.

Thanks for sharing this. The essay made me like her more, but her resume gave me insight into why they thought she was the one who should run Sims 4.

It's those lame animal hats, isn't it?

I love how sims react to fights in TS2. It's hilarious, they either cheer and clap or run away and hide. Children run off and cry.

What even is this game, it's seems like it's worse than TS3 when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Oh I see, so Ms Frankin is actually on a mission here is she? She wants to make us pay a large sum of money, on an ongoing basis, to be educated in social equality. Just what I always wanted...

Funny, because I thought this text rather, er, simple. Like a schoolgirl writing about "My Day with the Big Uns". For me she comes across as slightly lacking in intellectual astuteness.

@UltraLoser, you are so right that the Sims team haven't proved one bit all the technological advances that emotions will bring to the game. I have watched every video released by EA and their chums, any normal, emotional event in a sim's life is met with something short of a yawn, they rather do something else and if free will is on, they will do something else except acknowledge a major event is happening. Wouldn't that be the time to promote and show off the emotions?

After reading "What's Out & What's In" article at the official Sims site, Rachel and company slapped the community in the face with the words spoken in it. http://www.thesims.com/news/whats-out-and-whats-in If they did focus on the technical advances and the "strong foundation to build Sims 4 on", where is the proof? In build mode or CAS? If they say build mode, it's not complete. It's nice but not enough features to create masterpieces. CAS is great and the sims look good but that is not the only thing lots of players focus on. They have pigeonholed the game, controlling the community to play the way they want and the cheapest way to get away with releasing a game. If I worked on the Sims team, I wouldn't dare tell anyone. I am not a technical person and never worked on a game but there is no way in hell Ms. Franklin and company can tell me that the Sims 4 is an eye-popping success. No way!

@rodrigues, In this game I can't tell a difference between teens to elders, except maybe the clothes and the color of the hair. That is where you need pencil and paper to write down the ages for the sims in the neighborhood. I swear, I am not kidding about that, I don't know.
Watch they say that is an added challenge to playing the game, have to figure out who you are talking to and their ages. Do they have an "Ask About Age" option?

@maxon- LMAO! I never see a bar fight because once they happen, I am out the door. Bullets and flying chairs (or any weapon) don't have names on them. The innocent always lose. I'm out!

Meh, it seemed like a casual blog post. Not an intellectual essay. But we are disagreeing about something unimportant in the grand scheme of how messed up TS4 is.

Too right. I remember the first bar fight I witnessed (vividly). I was still a teenager. One minute I was sitting in the pub, sipping a gin and tonic and chatting to my friends, the next, the place erupted and every single chair and table in the room was no longer upright. Glasses flying everywhere and serious fisticuffs at the centre of it all.

It seemed instantaneous to me - wham! If you're not the initiator or a participant, it can seem to just come out of nowhere. I moved, sharpish, to the relative safety of the passage leading to the loos and stood there for the duration with a group of other women. The landlord, to his credit, shut it down pretty quickly and then everyone just grabbed a stool, uprighted the tables again and sat down like nothing had happened. I remember standing there in the middle of the room and it was like the 9.15am Express 125 had just passed through the station on its way to London - the light levels suddenly went up, your hair was horizontal and there were little motes of dust falling from the ceiling. Yeah.

I should emphasise, I am not the sort of person who regularly gets involved in bar fights or even visits the sort of places, on a regular basis, that hosts them. Still, it was a memorable experience. Unless I was a sim, of course.

Slightly off-topic, but As someone with a stupid middle name (Sloth. The h is silent, so it sounds like.. yeah), I symphatize with this woman.

Rachel seems to have the heart in the right place at least, but that essay was a big pile of nothing.