Yeah but none of those fancy features work without mods. It's not that they're not there, it's that the overall shitness of the engine cancels everything out.

Infants?
in Sims 1, you could feed it, play with it, sing to it, change the diaper, or put it to bed.
In Sims 2 you could feed it, play with it, wash it in the sink, change the diaper, or put it to bed. (or just drop it behind the fridge after giving it a bottle.)
In Sims 3 you can feed it, toss it in the air, tickle it, change the diaper, or put it to bed. (or drop it on the floor somewhere. )
What am I missing?

And Sims 2 toddlers had more that they could do than most people would let them do.

EA story progression is awful imo. And the game gets bloated and nearly unplayable without nraas mods.

I cannot relate and had been playing with no mods for years. Sure, there are a lot of things that should have be better but overall I find the game playable as is unlike what so many claim is impossible.



I can't say much about story progression as I always play with it off because I don't like not having control over what it can and cannot do. Regardless, it's definitely a step in the right direction concerning the genre it represents and a huge improvement over TS2. However, like everything, that feature would need much more improvement, advancement and refinement before it holds up to its true potential. But that will never happen since EA/Maxis made it clear the direction they want to take The Sims future into.

As far as the game getting bloated, well a game like The Sims 3 I would expect that at some point whether with or without mods. I don't think The Sims Studio ever gave any heads up or tips on how to manage our games/save files/etc once it hits a certain point or rather before than. I'm still not sure if I ever even experienced a bloated save as I don't even know what that entails except lagging, etc. But most of the symptoms, for me, are usually caused by mods, routing errors, leftover bugs.

You know, young adult is such a pointless life stage. Barely has distinctive aesthetic features. Would have made hardly any difference If they added their lifespan to adults instead of creating it as a duplicate life stage. CAW is equivalent to TS2 SimCity 4 custom terrain importing feature. CAP is Create-a-Pet or Create-a-Pattern in this case?

Other than that, others are fair points that really did revolutionize the game of the franchise.

Oh, I found something (which only was said once) that I can't understand, which is that "a Life Simulation shouldn't have supernatural/paranormal stuff because it's a life simulator" Or a comment that is quite often why a certain feature has to make sense when video games have no logic ? For the latter, my defense would be that 'the game, like TS3, is more or less resemble a real life in a fictional virtual setting, so that doesn't mean all things have to obey/disobey logic of real life. For the formal argument, well the genre is ambigious. It's a LIFE simulator, not a exclusively real life simulator. Who says a Life simulator can feature the life of fantasy fiction, life of mythical beings. Though life stage do have another problem in which they aren' all with depth, and some aren't worth transforming a sim into.

@Deshong Those things should've been fixed and improved upon with Sims 4 but all we got is a watered version of Sims 2 with Sims 1 elements. It's hardly an improvement if you ask me. I do prefer the way the sims look on 2 but that's just my personal preference and as much as I like Sims 3 it also took away some of the best things that made 2 so special such as realistic car animations. I know it's a minor thing but it still irks me whenever I see sims disappear and reappear inside the cars and it kind of ruins the immersion for me. I was also hoping that they would fix that on 4 but instead we got no cars and we got magic teleportation phones as a replacement and babies on Sims 3 look and act like dolls then actual babies like on 2 and they're just plain boring to play with. 4 is even worst on that regard. I could keep going on about this but i'm sure that you got my point and look i'm not trying to bash 3 or nothing. I was simply pointing some of the biggest flaws that bother me that could have been easily fixed but never did in it whole lifespan.

Why not just do both? You could please shareholders and consumers if only they make video games that everyone would want to buy like in their glory days. You don't have to just pick one side. You actually think that wouldn't bite in the butt in the long run. Just because they're getting a lot of money from more gullible consumers now doesn't mean that they can't just wisen up and decide for themselves that enough is enough. I'm sorry I just felt the need that I should come back and reply with a better response then what I had last time.

Because shareholders aren't involved in the development process. As I've said, these are people who have no understanding of game development or anything related to it. They know games are popular, and that they will potentially make money off of them. Dev teams cutting several months of development time to push a game out and meet deadlines for release means nothing to them, because they don't get that those precious few months may drastically hinder sales in the long run. Adding to that, truly revolutionary games are becoming scarce for that very reason. In the days before day one patches and DLC, incomplete games were a death sentence. There was no "fixing them up" short of a re-release, so you had to get it right the first time. Games being released in an incomplete mess only to be patched up later is considered the norm now. Nobody even thinks twice about it. And DLC and microtransactions aren't going away either, so no point in fighting a losing battle there. So really, that's your answer - there's no room for risks. Playing it safe is what these studios do to stay open, lest a series of potential failures leaves them strung up for losing money.

There still are good games out there being made. Zelda,Mario and Witcher 3 are the only ones that I think of off the top of my head and they still made an insane amount of money and they got overwhelming positive reviews from the consumers and critics.

Those aren't really good examples. The first two are well established Nintendo franchises spanning across several years of games and large fanbases to boot. And in W3's case, well, CDP is known for their quality anyway. They also don't have people constantly looming over their shoulders for a game to be released. That was the point I was making. EA studios don't have that luxury because EA, as in the actual Electronic Arts brand, is a publicly traded company and many of their decisions have to be weighed in favor of pleasing the shareholders so that everything is business as usual for them. Yes, it sucks but it's largely to be expected when you are the second largest games publisher in North America.

Yeah I know that Nintendo isn't the best example but they're the only ones that I could think of off the top of my head. My point still stands that there are still quality video games being made. Stardew Valley is another good one and that game is made by just one guy which is truly amazing.

I do agree, depending on the developer. Games by and large develop the same today as they always have, some studios are just bigger risk takers than others. It all goes back to that. Even if a studio doesn't have SHs to deal with, a bad game is still a bad game and will obviously still affect them negatively. What's really tragic though is to see a game company fall so far from what they once were, like BioWare. Their talent left in boat loads over the years and nowadays are basically a hollow shell of their former self.

Yeah that's really unfortunate but that's largely due to EA constantly breathing down the developers' necks to rush the game out on a tight deadline and as a result we got Mass Effect Andromeda which is very buggy.

what kind of attitude? In your video I saw. The game was running quite smoothly.

Actually in that particular case, EA offered to give Montreal an extension on development but they declined it. It was just a badly managed mess. The Montreal team had never actually made an entire game before, and they wasted several years from essentially doing nothing at the beginning of MEA's development.

I love that the developers added YA's permanently and I have all my ages mapped out realistically except for a time jump from 3 months to 1 year old.


Young adults are clearly the 1st half of adulthood. If gradual aging was a feature then maybe it would make sense to combine YA's/A's but that isn't the case. It's nice to have a more fleshed out life span across the ages but I'm one to get a bit too deep into gameplay over details like this so it's very much appreciated.

As far as some not liking the supernatural/fantasy element of a life simulator is fine because everyone has their own preferences of what the game is to them. Even Will Wright didn't at first agree with supernaturals and was against it but his co-workers talked him into it and he saw that some did actually like it. But initially the creator of The Sims wasn't for it either and preferred the more realistic aspects.

Exactly. You have no idea how much time I put into that, making sure that my videos are watchable. 90% of my Bridgeport88 episodes aren't even recorded in Bridgeport, because of how taxing the game is. I have to build elaborate interiors, surrounded by greenscreens, in a dedicated world so that I can composit a decent-looking exterior in afterwards. That means I have limited camera movement and I have to design the whole interior around avoiding rogue glares and reflections that can't easily be covered up. This wasn't a major issue in episode 1 because the sets I used were a lot less elaborate than the ones I'm doing now, in the interest of realism I'm going to have to get a lot more creative than I've been so far. I also have to avoid using hues too similar to the key color used on the greenscreens, and even then I have to record a significant portion in slow-mo to offset the low framerate. And that's when everything is going as usual.

When things aren't going as usual, I have to slash my graphics settings because I get jarringly disruptive graphical glitches otherwise. And that means I can't record, firstly because I'm not going to use sub-par graphics, and secondly because I need my regular settings to be able to record on these greenscreened sets.

Thanks for correcting me on that. I don't really pay that much attention to gaming news or even news in general so my facts may be a little inaccurate.

Holy cow, good for you. I would get so sick of my Sims with that age setting. I try to use days as years (e.g., child ages up to teen at 13 days.,)

I'm quite fascinated by the Sim's AI and am always finding interesting things about them, how they feel about other Sims, etc. I notice the more time I spend playing these Sims, the more they reveal things I never knew was possible in TS3 such as unrequited love. Just because something isn't a feature you see on the UI/etc, doesn't mean it's not there in gameplay. I have a Sim who was best friends with someone but she was in love with someone else...a married man with kids to boot. Then he really liked another one of his female friends but she too was not showing any sign of liking him back. During these times I can see the frustration in his face and I guess that's why he's so close to someone he used to bully because he too knows what it feels like to be in love with someone who loves someone else. Maybe, they will have a change of heart as another Sim of mine seems to be trying to rekindle something with someone she didn't want a relationship with or perhaps at that time. I wonder where that will go?

Also, children do get crushes. There's a lot more to discover about this game. I think it's amazing that TS3 can be played according to how each individual player wants. Though, some help from mods for even more control.

Hardly any different from TS2.

Is this an actual thing? I wonder how that might be- maybe from the attractions system?

Will changing the screen recording software make any difference? Performance wise?

This is one of the few areas Sims 4 has an advantage imo. It loads quick and you can take pretty good recordings. Good for filming stories.

It only makes a significant difference on the higher end. The game generally isn't going to exceed 30 when I'm recording. In the 10s and 20s, I'll lose 3-4 frames max.
And for the record, that's not the experience I've had with TS4. It's almost as sluggish as TS3 on my end, and it takes an age to load. TS4 is almost as slow with 3 expansion packs as TS3 is with 11. Now why that is, I don't know, but every reason not to play TS4 is a good one in my book.

Really!? Ts4 is slow for you too? Do you mean while recording or in general play as well? There was a bit of a lag problem during City living but was fixed later.