No, I think they're more into "stimulation". As in parties.

Are parties even enjoyable? I actually like to play young bachelor sims but I've never been able to get a party to work out and be fun. Sims never do what I want and just stand around looking at things. Considering how obsessed everyone says the game devs are with parties, they barely seem to work in my play experience. Adding new party content or themes doesn't really seem to fix the core simulation issues that hampers any group interaction. Perhaps the next expansion will drastically change that?

I really don't feel like The Sims 4 has been so party heavy I guess.

Get Together is the first Party themed EP.

Outdoor Retreat and Spa Day aren't about parties at all.

Luxury Party and Spooky stuff I guess. The other 2 SPs Patio and Kitchen nope.

I don't think their main goal is to build a simulation game either, just to build a fun game. Simulation games aren't very popular and The Sims has never in its history been about accurately portraying life as best as it could.

That is very contradictory statement because The Sims is of the simulation genre and happens to be the most popular PC game ever released.

I meant in the technical of terms that it is not a true to life simulator because I'm confused as to why you say it doesn't simulate. It does, it is a simulation game because of how it is played and it is more about managing than playing. At the same time though it doesn't go into the category of other true to life simulator games that try their very best to simulate their subject as perfect as possible. Like say a flight simulator. That has never been the sims. It's never been about trying to accurately portray life otherwise it wouldn't be as popular because those games are not mainstream games.

That's why I don't think their goal is to create just a simulation game, as those simulation games I mentioned above sometimes are more about being accurate than being fun and there are not that many AAA mainstream simulation titles.

I mean you are right if you mean it doesn't simulate life properly. It doesn't, but it was never really meant to simulate life and that would be like attempting to create The Matrix...so yeah, it does simulate it's own little world though.

It's a simulation *game* not a simulator. I'd love to play with an actual human AI simulator!

I meant doesn't simulate as in TS4 is simplified and lacks depth to its simulation.

See, The Sims 4 lacks important aspects of life and two key major aspects are trauma & fear. Where is the financially challenged Sim that cannot afford household upkeep and thus gets items repossessed? Where is that Sim that works their entire life to afford that fancy object that ends up getting stolen by a burglar? Where is the bitter widowed mother or father Sim struggling to tend between needs of their 6 offspring and their own personal needs? Where is the loner Sim that is afraid to grow old and die alone?

All of those situations are real life instances that were once simulated in this game series. But no longer is the case with TS4. Without seeing your character suffer from situations like these, it removes a bit of depth to the characters and leaves the player feeling uninterested in their Sims well-being. And when this lack of interest happens, a major aspect of game play is gone as one no longer feels any incentive to keep their Sim(s) alive and thus loses motivation to progress their Sim's life.

This game is suppose to portray emotions, and yet it lacks a majority of the negative emotions that are displayed in reality, and the situations that influence them.

The saddest part of it all, I could get past the lack of some of the missing 80+ features, if this game wasn't such a bore. There is no challenge. Nothing that makes you plan ahead, and not much that leaves you pondering what situation could unfold next because most of what this game offers is predictable because of the lack of depth to its characters and their world space and the simulation that revolves around them.

I could go further and describe the poor game economy and perhaps even the dry humor and how they fit into the puzzle, but there simply isn't enough recycle bins for that.

It's because the Sims, in its early days was considered a 'toy' because of its lack of real goals. You made the the goals and set the rules. It was really a virtual dollhouse, which simulated the lives of virtual people.

Subsequent releases have 'gameified' the series in adding more and more goals and rules to follow.

Well I think a better compromise between the game and true AI could have been made. It's like they've deliberately made some parts of the human psyche more important than others, and left some out altogether, in order to support certain themes of gameplay. We have no food preferences, socioeconomic attitudes, altruism, topical interests. We have jealousy, romantic interest, skills, um... anything else?

Gosh! They did skip being able to donate this time around, didn't they? In the Sims 3 they could donate money, but it would be neat to be able to give away excess furniture and collectibles to needy sims. They could make a neighborhood donation bin.

[/Rachel F.] AND MOOD! DON'T FORGET MOOD! [/end Rachel F.]

You have too many slashes. Your Rachelbot is totally going to error out.

Naw it's perfect. Real Rachel is full of errors.

The sims has always been very easy for me. TS3 was the easiest version of the game, it was super easy to become wealthy within 2 generations if not one if you had a painter. TS1 was a little more difficult because of reasons that IMO were not always fun (juggling friendships) and TS2 was really just right.

TS4 though is a bit more difficult a task to become rich, especially when you get the bills you do. A lot of that stuff though outside of the burglar option you sort of had to push your sims to play out that scenario. Like the sim that works their entire life to buy something only to have it stolen...this can happen in previous sims game but the sim doesn't get broken up behind it because it was something they worked hard for (That's a storyline the player imagined) the sim simply sees that the object is stolen and gets a negative moodlet about it. Sims 4 is really no different.

I have a sim named Ben that is Evil and Mean...so this mean that pretty much no sim likes him. As a kid he would always randomly just insult and argue with his parents. His father had the dislike children trait so this didn't make things better. In the game's mind it was simply just "These two traits don't match. These sims will hate each other." in my mind there was a story about it. That the father just didn't like this kid because this kid was a menace.

I always played sims as imagining the stories behind the traits. Otherwise it is all pretty mechanical.

I do agree there is a lack of negative traits or really just a lack of traits period. They did just add jealousy at least.



You can donate to various foundations through the computer menu which is a bit confusing at times.

Ah, okay! I must have missed it!

Yeah I think people often forget that a simulation game is not a simulator. Simulation games are just a genre of games that attempt to simulate some aspects of real life or fictional realities in a realistic manner. Many in fact don't accurately portray real life. Some do, but not all. For example sports games are simulation games they don't have anything in common with real life teams. You can have players for much longer than you would ever have them IRL. Shiz sim tower is a simulation game and I doubt most people would think that accurately resembles a tower lol.

The bigger issue with that statement is that some of those traumas were massively down played in The Sims 4 for various reasons. Firefighters don't exist in the TS4 world, as they were supposedly made obsolete by sprinkler systems. Babies and children can still get taken away due to neglect or poor grades, but The Socialworkinator 9001 vaporizes the children, instead of social services coming to take the children away. Instead of the repo man, shutting off utilities is the consequences of not paying your bills. Sure, in the last case, it sort of makes sense, but it's still fairly easy to play around that because cell phones don't get shut off, and you can mooch from your neighbors.

Of course, but from the Sims 3 onwards, the simulation aspects of the Sims series have slowly been eroded away and replaced with goal-seeking ones. There is a difference in simulating aspects in a fun way (i.e. Sims 2 private school headmaster, restaurants) that allows for a degree of unpredicability, and not simulating them at all (Sims 3 restaurants, random goals in the Sims 3 & 4) which leaves us with completely predictable outcomes. Again, the 'toy'-like aspects are being replaced by 'game-like ones.


Really, one of the things that saved the Sims 1 in the beginning was the fact that a lot of attention was drawn to the game when two female Sims kissed one another autonomously!
http://jezebel.com/how-a-lesbian-ki...sims-1593967099

I absolutely agree with you. I loved TS2. TS4 and 3 is a simulation game though. It doesn't matter if it is realistic or not. That was really all I wanted to touch on because a few others seemed to think that it wasn't.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure about your point concerning sports games. Those games seem to be the ones most based in reality as far as simulation goes. I'm not sure if they are still using real teams/names, I vaguely remember something about licensing issues with teams/players but that may have only affected college sports. Either way, those games are all depicting real-life teams/players, even if they are using bogus names due to whatever lawsuit.

An example would be NFL football games. Those games are coded based on real players and their real-life stats. Physical character image and descriptions are realistically depicting someone currently playing (US) Football. The player directs them to run specific plays or make specific decisions in the game, but the results are based on real life player stat match ups or probable outcomes based on what would actually happen in a real game. That's why Madden NFL released a new game every year for so long, the team roosters would change and they updated all the stat coding from the previous season. Same with most other sports games. As far as a true simulation game, you can't get much closer than that imo.

As for the sims, I agree fully with your point. It's not a life simulator in the truest sense. It's a fantasy world where 70% of the time, the pixels will respond in a familiar enough way that it seems like it's simulating some kind of reality that's close to our own. The other 30% of the time, the pixels are birthing out alien ass babies because they looked through a telescope too long at night or they are chasing down a colorful LSD cloud because there's a unicorn in the middle of it, which is less familiar to our own reality.

Well, maybe not that LSD unicorn part... college...

It depends on the game and in general I agree. They do try to keep things close to reality, but in some you can have players for a really long time way past their prime (let's be honest there is an age limit here) and little competition from other teams for good players. IRL they would be more valuable and harder to keep. Along those lines some have problems with making defensive play too simple or poor offensive mechanics. In particular I was thinking of NBA Live 15 (excuse my mistake. I mix games up all the time) when I made my comment. Some of the games allow you to create super characters in which you know no normal player would be able to perform in that manner. Still I agree overall with most try hard to be as realistic as possible. My hate boner is just big for the NBA series.

Are you saying aliens aren't real?!! and I can't be a unicorn?! I'M CRUSHED!

Fair. I'm haven't been around sports games for a few years now and it's not surprising if the formula changed, especially considering this is a mini-discussion in the middle of a larger discussion about the future of the Sims. Honestly, I just brought it up because sports games used to really impress me with their dedication to realistic simulation. I'm not a big sports fan at all, but I love a well-designed simulation. I remember watching my friends play and double-checking players stats irl just to see if they matched what was in the game. I would never want a sims game that is so close to reality, but man o man did the attention to realistic detail in those sports games give me the vapors. :lovestruc

Hahahaha. I just did a reread of this comment before I hit post and realized how completely nerdy it sounds. No wonder my husband calls me a weirdo. I'm going to hit post anyway though, just because I have no shame about my well-designed simulation fetish and I'm pretty sure the universe wants me "submit reply"

I finally read the infamous Rachel Franklin interview, and here's my response to it in a nutshell:


I'm glad I haven't bought anything else for The Sims 4 beyond the base game (and I still regret buying the game one year later). That interview was just...

Rachel is why we can't have nice things anymore.

The more I think of Mrs Franklin's "weirder stories" the more close I come to believe that the possibility EAtards' plans for The Sims series to become just another mobile game might not be a possibility but a well-thought plan. There is the precedence of SimCity, after all. If this article is anything to go by, http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/06/s...d-simcity-ever/
there is no future for The Sims on PC. Unless another company up to the challenge steps forward to give us a better game.