Okay, it's a joke..sort of.

I just figured there's so many questions and concerns about Sims 4, I have them too But, I also realize the game is already planned out, with some wiggle room to add things along the way.

But the genes/looks, neighbourhood type, rabbit holes or not, age progression, graphics, building options, and EP's are all set.

Whatever they have done, will be the game. My hope is they taken the time to hear what players want. Which is a tad hard seeing you have the Sims 1 & 2 fans and Sims 3 fans.

So, how does one combine these three versions and make something new, so everyone is happy? They can't! I think when it comes to the Sims, players are interested in progress, but don't like change.

I think the basic tenants to a Sims game are these:

Must be one person game, online is optional.

I don't know how it was for Sims 3 for those that only use the game for stories, movies, building, designing clothes,hair and other mods? But the reason the Sims is so popular is you can make the game a game, or for creative purposes only. Therefore, the rules are there are no rules for Sims. It's all about choice. So, please don't stifle our own hopes and dreams, and story ideas, for an entire new game style.

Sims with personalities, wants/fears, traits if you wish. Sims are never to be bland, they are to have a charm and humour to them.

I realize you're stuck with how Sims should look, seeing we all have different opinions on that one. So for that area, we need more things in CAS to play with. Body types, various hair and eye colours. Plus nice hair styles, that go with all the clothing options. You did a great job for the most part for female Sims, not really for babies or tots though. But, you treated the men/boys like Father's Day Gifts. A few nice things, the rest were gag gifts.

Age progression is a must now, please keep the power to age Sims on our own schedule, and never should a household carry on without us at the helm...Our game, not yours!

When there is bug and glitch issues, they are to be listened to and fixed, before releasing an EP!

Know from the beginning what will bork the game. Like moving Sims to different neighbourhoods, deleting tombstones, and whatever else that has caused problems in the past.

In order to preserve character files, please limit the amount of Townies and Service Sims. Even better give us the choice to make them ourselves, or choose how many we want. Or for every character you add, you add character files for our own stock pile.

Remember your fan base first, before trying to get younger players. Do you think Star Wars and Star Trek would be the money making franchises that they are, if they didn't already have fans in place? To remind you, fans liked Yoda and Chewy, not Jar Jar Binks, guess who got silenced in the Star Wars series...

So, Sims 4 is now set, and we are interested in what you have done. However, Sims 5 is now on the table. Perhaps a surprise is in store, and you have followed these tenants?
Or perhaps, you have done something so unbelievable awesome, that you can convert just about everyone to Sims 4, that we won't even want to talk about Sims 5, because you could never top it. My fingers are crossed on that one!

Sims 5 would not even be released until about 2019... I really think there's no point in talking about it when we don't even know what Sims 4 has yet! We won't have any idea what changes we'd like to see until we're well into TS4.

But the OP is right: Sims 4 is set and (almost) done and it's up to us to take it or leave it. If the game's awful I hope more people would be inclined to leave it and concentrate on getting EA to do what WE want the next time around = Sims 5.
If Sims 4 fails they might be more interested in what we have to say and Sims 5 would be on their agenda sooner rather than AFTER they exploited every little bit they can get out of Sims 4!

EA could just read this thread for ideas: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=502628

Of course Sims 4 will have changes, but to what degree? I left it wide open to any possibilities for the new series. My point is there is a certain formula that makes a Sims game, the Sims. And perhaps, Sims 4 has these ingredients?

But there's so many threads, which I've contributed to as well, for a game that's already designed. Which contains so many things that people want or must have to play. Some are possible and some are asking for things that only NASA computers can handle.

There is going to be things about the game that people will love and hate, can't please everyone. But, there are things that should always be part of the game, while they experiment with the future.

One is presuming that there WILL be a Sims 5.

I'm still thinking .... or maybe hoping ... that EA realizes it HAS to hit this one out of the park. The refusal of a sizable (not a majority, but I'm still guessing at least 20 to 33 percent) group of us dinosaurs to fully embrace Sims 3 with the hungry enthusiasm that most did for Sims 2 (from Sims 1) .... I don't care how EA glossed over it, it mustn't have helped Sims 3 sales at all. I cannot see how losing even 20% of your regular customers in this economy is going to help any. If EA loses, let's say, another 20% of its Sims 3 customers in ADDITION to the 20% of Sims 2 dinosaurs ... I may not be a marketing person, but that seems to be a huge chunk of disappearing players to me! And a company cannot rely on all-new players to make up that large a slack. Ask Zynga re Farmville. Ask EA re SimSoc, for that matter.

EA has made too many missteps with its games, and I think its stock shows this. I do believe that even in this sour economy for most countries, there is a chance for EA to do decently in the game market. Maybe not astoundingly great ... many people simply don't like Sims-like games, and one is going to have a hard time converting that crowd ... and about that lousy economy ... but decently.

The big, big thing is that the game has to work right the first time. A few non-game-killing quirks that can be fixed with an easy patch, OK. But if the game doesn't perform like a star initially, EA has lost big-time from the start. For instance, so many people wanted Sims Social initially. But EA lost many people when they had trouble getting the game to play properly, and continued to lose people because of its below-par customer service. If someone has a problem, EA has to ditch the habit (at least its recent habit) it seems to have of using canned responses and lackluster help. EA needs competent, enthusiastic professionals who can quickly understand the problem and troubleshoot it ASAP. And .... dare I breathe it ... do it for free. EA MUST keep its players happy. Don't instantly try to shift blame or ignore the problem. And offer refunds if, after working with a professional, the customer still can't get the game to work. This stuff happens.

EA cannot resort to old habits anymore. I can only hope (though honestly, do not hold much of it), that the recent shakeup has jump-started EA into realizing the importance of its customers. Treat us that way, and EA might have a great chance of making a Sims 5 years after the phenomenally-successful Sims 4. Fail, and Sims 4 might very well be the last series for a long, long time.,

I'm watching with great interest.

I hope it's a great game (because I'd really like to be able to sim again).

I hope Eaxis knows they need to hit this one out of the park.

But then, I didn't think anyone was capable of messing up the Sim City franchise as badly as they just did. (Part of me really wants to see and hear those trees that make siren noises. That's not a request for Sims 4, though!)

I actually hope this will happen, not that TS4 will fail but that TS5 would not come out until another ten years. Have a break in between and start fresh. People would whine less about having to buy yet again another pet, uni or seasons ep.

EA doesn't mind losing the portion of it's customer base that didn't make the jump to Sims 3 because there was a sizable crop of newcomers to the series to make up the difference.

But remember, it isn't JUST the Sims series that needs to hit a home run for EA. We only focus on that here because, well, it's a Sims site. The business practices that we all hate had their fingers in just about every game they have released for the last few years. IMHO, they have tried to widen their base a bit by dumbing down the games they make, to make them more "accessible". To use an example of a Non-Sims game, take Dragon Age. When the first one was made, it was a gamble. In some ways, it was very Old School gaming at it's core, and no one was really sure if a game like that would draw in the crowds anymore. Combat was more tactical based, as you had to frequently pause the game to issue orders to your party or to place them where they could be most effective. Well, as we all know, it was a huge success. Then Dragon Age 2 came out. Now, I enjoyed that game, but compared to the first, it was definately lacking in some areas. It became a button masher game. Combat was sped up, and tactical placement wasn't nearly as much a concern as it used to be. The classes were simplified overall, and aside from throwing a few health potions from time to time, I rarely had to switch party members or make full use of their abilities. As my other half (who is not a gamer) said to me one day, " I could never play the first one, but I could play the second one." The game still did fairly well, but the older gamers had many complaints that instead of building on the first, it actually took away some of the things that made it a great game.

I won't even begin to discuss what happened with Mass Effect 3.

That is my fear as to what the new Sims is going to be like. We have already seen the game morph from a pure sandbox game into something that has more "quest" type missions. "Do This" to "Unlock That". EA needs to really question if this current business model is actually the way they want to proceed. They have gotten away from what made people go crazy over these little pixel people in the first place. Only time will tell if they can refocus enough to make a game that will still be played years from now.

The Sims 5: Not complete edition.


35 expansions and SP later:
The Sims 5: Complete Edition.

This is exactly how I feel about it. I couldn't of said it better myself.

Sims 5 thread? Already?

Well it is a good sign that maxis is involved with the sims once more, their university expansion for sims 3 was not that great and introduced a very broken and flawed social groups system though.

Usually EA pretty much kills the developers they buy to take over production of their products themselves (while they should really stick to publishing since their games are just shells of once great products)

Not surprised at all at Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 being disappointing, The Old Republic is a nice game but could have been a great game. Sad to see Bioware slipping away though, they went from being a name that guaranteed high quality to yet another mediocre producer of nothing but sequels. I used to buy their games blindly and was never disappointed, and now I've yet to buy dragon age 2 at all due to the very disappointing demo.

Bullfrog gave us populous, dungeon keeper and many other innovative games and now the company is no more and EA is letting all those great licenses rott away. they dont do anything with it, and appearantly wont give up those licenses either or ask rediculous amounts of money for it despite having no plans to ever use it.

Westwood's Command and Conquer series used to be a leader in the RTS genre. Under EA it changed to cheap sequels that failed to innovate, leading up to C&C4 where they desperatly tried to innovate and failed miserably. they cant develop games and shouldnt be doing it. Leave it to the proffesionals. Just stick to making their little sports games that they rerelease every year with a small update, and poorly done movie licensed games that no one ever expected anything of. Just leave existing franchises of greater developers alone.

Maxis is not involved with Sims 3 again. Considering the job they did on SimCity, that might not be a bad thing. If the Sims 4 team grabbed some devs from the Maxis team, I hope it was the cream of the crop.

EA did some restructuring of their divisions and starting calling them different things. Nothing changed as far as Sims 3 is concerned, except the name.

From the Sims Studio Wiki

From the Maxis Wiki

EDITED: Duh! We're talking about Sims 5, not Sims 3. Note to self: pay attention!

Maxis is involved with The Sims 4 according to this info - The Sims 4 Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_4

Development

The game is being developed by The Sims Studio and Maxis, unlike The Sims 3, which was developed by The Sims Studio standalone. This will also mark the full return of Maxis to develop a main The Sims title. Maxis recently returned to develop SimCity after a long hiatus, which released in March of 2013.
The Sims 4 will be a single-player game,[4] and won't require an internet connection to play, unlike SimCity.[5]

Does anyone know where it's being developed? The idea of two different studios working on one game (especially these two studios,) fills me with sheer terror a sense of apprehension. I certainly hope they communicate with each other in a more effective way than the EP/store teams do.

Don't you forget: We – the buyers – rule
I have high hopes, not for Sims 4 but for Sims 5. One of them is that it'll actually come to pass before 2019 as stated in this thread.
Sims players are a large community which got divided into two by the release of Sims 3. Hopefully, the release of Sims 4 will unit them again - in protest!
As you can tell, my trust in EA to get it right this time is slight to nothing. I believe that they'll totally screw it up and expect to sell it anyway as they successfully done with Sims 3.

I get all the excitement and temptation of a new game release, believe me, if I could try Sims 3 out for free I would – just so that I could confirm all the things I've heard about the game. Since I couldn't do that, I've had to rely on the wonderful Sims community and surprisingly I found that quite easy to do. From what I've seen and read here I gathered enough information to KNOW that I would never be happy with Sims 3 and consequently didn't buy it. And I wasn't the only one to handle it that way.

So, what do you have to do to ENSURE that there WILL be a Sims 5? Just DO NOT BUY SIMS 4 if you're not happy with what EA's done with it. I know the urge to see for yourself is hard to resist but clench your teeth and look forward to what you could get from resisting – a truthfully better Sims game!

I solemnly swear to NOT BUY Sims 4 if it is obviously just another money pit for EA!
I swear I will wait at least 3 month after the release before even CONSIDERING buying. Instead I will eagerly browse every Sims community site for news and REAL insights on the game and in general take my time.

they should make the sims using our ideas not there ideas but it is still fun

Kind of thought Maxis was already dead, killed by EA like the other developers they buy. Considering the stuff they released though they are as good as dead anyways considering the quality of Spore, the last sim city and the university expansion for sims3.

To me Maxis is a brand that actually put thought into the Sims game. I realize for creative purposes and maybe just pissed off with EA some of the original Sims developers have moved on. But, it would be nice to know they recruited or even talked to some of them before proceeding into Sims 4. Or should if there's a Sims 5.

Anyways, "Maxis" may have been used to to mess with consumers's minds. Is EA that ashamed of what they become, that they try to act like their not involved with this game?!

*sighs* We have not yet got sims 4. Let sims 5 posts happen when they happen and stop trying to see what is to come for a game which is years ahead althogh I guess that it would be cometh in the year 2029.

I have to disagree. The more I hear about Sims 4 the more I'm inclined to believe that they totally messed up yet another time around especially if the rumour that it was initially created as an online game turns out to be true!
I pity all those people, posting about their wants and fears regarding Sims 4 – as if there's actually room left for changes. There's not and all their ideas about a new game should really go into THIS thread.

Actually, you can try TS3 for free, either illegally (bad idea, and I'm not going into detail because of AUP), or legally by finding a friend that has it and playing it on their computer.

By the way, not to sound negative, but if TS4 bombs, maybe rather than make a better TS5 EA will just go out of business and some other game company will buy The Sims franchise. Maybe Mod The Sims can buy out the Sims Studio if TS4 bombs.

But it has "happened" now! When's a good time to discuss it? I don't even know if anyone from EA/Maxis/Sims studio's reads these posts? I think sometimes they do, because somethings have been added to the game, which came from fans...or it was already in the works.

The point was Sims 4 is going to be what it is, and it could be really cool...I'm willing to give them a chance. However, since people already have high expectations for Sims 4. I just thought I'd summarize in my opinion, what a Sims game was. This may have already happened and then some? Sure Sims 5 is way too early to talk about, if there is one? But, it's always good to bring attention to things before they even start it...unless they have and I should of made a Sims 6 thread!

Oh and 2029!! God, I don't think it will take 25 years to get a Sims 5, but if it takes them that long to get it right, and I'm still alive to enjoy it, then so be it!

2029!?! I guess someone could wheel me up to the keyboard and I could drool on it.


If Sims 4 does not sell well there won't be a Sims 5.

But we haven't actually heard anything about Sims 4. All we have are three sets of eyes.