I've been browsing the forums and read something that stuck with me - If I find the original post I'll link it but it said, basically, that TS4 is attempting to recapture (of that's the word) any TS2 players.

Now, I've preordered TS4, and I'll admit a large part of the charm is it largely resembles TS2, much more than TS3 did. How many others found this?

I played TS3 briefly on other peoples computers but never got into it. I just wondered if the majority of TS4 fans are usually TS2 players, rather than TS3 players?

When I first heard about it I was so excited - I still am. But I am also filled with increasing trepidation. Ever since I hit order, it seems the internet has gone out of its way to show only the bad, less of the good, for TS4.

However, like I said, I never got into TS3 and the charm of TS2 might finally(!) be wearing a little thin. I accept it won't be at its best until at least a few patches and maybe a couple of expansion packs, but it will give me plenty of new (to me) content to explore. Also if I wait until an expansion pack comes out I won't be able to afford essentially two games in one hit.

I had The Sims 3 and 2 expansions and I couldn't get on with it so went back to Sims 2.

Part of the appeal that The Sims 4 had to me at the start was that it was more like The Sims 2. I'm not excited to get it anymore though, I was but too much is missing - maybe further down the line when I have seen how the game works I will change my mind. But for now it's a definite no from me.

I am the same Jendra9311 I actually had the Sims 3 base game and absolutely hated it, the gameplay, the art style, everything, it just seemed so loveless and unpolished in comparison to Sims 2.
After a period of trial in which I really attempted to get into Sims 3 I went straight back to Sims 2 and have been playing it since, however, like you, I find my enjoyment of this great game wearing a little thing after 10(!) years of semi-frequent playing.

I think that's why I don't mind that Sims 4 is eliminating most of the Sims 3 innovations, I never got used to them in the first place and so I won't miss them. Sure I'll miss the Toddlers a little but overall I'm really looking forward to this game.

I had hopes when they first showed the TS4 sims, moved to being on the fence as I saw more but thought it would still be an okay birthday present, then they removed toddlers. Not happening. As a Sims 2 player I need my toddlers, so I went and bought Skyrim Elder Scrolls instead. I occasionally play sims 3 but never got into it, the AI was busted from the word go and never improved. I don't care for EA's version of the open world as I believe that is the course of the rabbit holes, but expected something better than what they have come up with for Sims 4. If Skyrim can do an open world with loading screen just at certain places, why can't Sims 4? So if they were trying to recapture my attention they should have ditched silly walks, 'bro's and rocket ships and concentrated on the important life stages.

I am a sims 3 player that is really looking forward to The sims 4. I have also played all the other sims games, but stopped playing them really fast when a new generation came out. I will probably stop playing sims 3 when sims 4 is out. I dont mind missing out on some stuff from earlyer games. I dont think that just because they removed stuff that has been in other basegames, it will be a bad game. I think it will be a fun game, so I lookforward to it.

You ask and you shall receive. It almost became trendy to hate Sims 3. Kinda like the hipster idea of only listening to records. So, no doubt EA reads thousands and thousands of forum posts and Emails about how much people hate Sims 3 and want to go back to Sims 2 gameplay......ta-da! Sims 4. Now, this is not unique to Sims though, and developers are well aware to be extremely cautious when listening to the wants of core players. Sometimes they say one thing but would hate it in reality.

I agree with you OP, judging by the esthetics/design of the game it seems like it's more ts2 styled. There were so many little things i missed from ts2, like the family albums, memories, the recessive and dominant genes (in ts3, my sim, who was adopted, had a kid who inherited his grandmothers dyed green hair :-/ ) and lots of small things like that, and eventually I reinstalled ts2, and actually found that there was a lot of gameplay i still hadn't discovered even after all this time.

I might buy ts4 eventually and I do hope it will be a good game. Although after so much that was initially announced and later cut, I do find it sort of rude that they haven't lowered the price for the game. If the game came out to 2/3 of what was the initial price then toddlers and pools and no shopping wouldn't have bothered me.

I really hope TS4 gentics are easy to get a handle on - has any word been said on how TS4 genetics works yet? I'm a generational player and love to try get features passed on through the generations! Albums and memories are useful for keeping track of families (TS3 albums/memories always seemed weird to me).

It wasn't the core gameplay of TS2 that I liked, it was the sheer attention to detail. Well-crafted gameplay made playing bit-part families less of a chore. TS2 rotational gameplay minus the polish? Playing more families will be a drag, time to townie-fy everyone.

I did skip TS3, and will be skipping TS4, as well. For all that it resembles TS2, it does not have the basics of that game.

Thank you, EA for making me stick with the best of the batch. At least I know what I'm dealing with, and you can't stop me from having fun.

No i didn't skip sims 3 and i actually like playing it a lot even if it's buggy. After sims 3 i just can't play sims 2, i get bored very fast.

Also i'm sad that they decided to scrap every sims 3 feature

I originally bought the sims 3 base game, tried it, was a bit overwhelmed by all the choices and returned to sims 2 for a while. Then after two or three expansions came out, I retried sims 3 and found it much improved. But I only started to really love it when I discovered twallan's mods. Without his story progression replacing the stupid ea one, I would go crazy. And there are so many other mods from his side, like traveller and wohooer, that turn the game into the one I like to play.Mods like overwatch and error trap make the game playable in the first place for me without succumbing to major lag.

I am a little concerned that sims 4 will be the same- but this time without twallan. I do not know if i want to play that game considering I could not play an unmodded sims 3 game without having a nervous breakdown every time. Plus, it is too expensive with all the things they cut, so I will continue to enjoy my sims 3 and hope for many more great mods to enhance my game play.

We had a fling, but I went back to the love of my life when I realized how much I missed the Sims 2. It was quite an experience. A lot of running in the field, kissing in the rain, meeting at the airport in the nick of time.

Nicholas Sparks could have written our story.

I skipped TS3 for most of its existence.

The first time I saw TS3 sims (long before the game came out) I said 'Hellllll no.' I loved the differences in the facial archetypes of TS2 (compare Goopy to Meadow to Komei, etc.) and to me every single TS3 sim was a variation on the same theme. The open world intrigued me but I was firmly against story progression (I play rotations and have upwards of 30 related families in my hood) and all the uproar about SP after TS3's launch confirmed that the game was a buggy mess so I and many, many others stayed with TS2.

(-To the person who said very few people only play TS2- Nope. I discovered a huge community on LJ around 2011. They've long since jumped over to Tumblr but they still make tons of CC. I didn't follow because I could never really get into Tumblr, but occasionally I'll look at it to see what new CC I can find. And I'm sure there are tons of others who were satisfied enough with TS2 to not feel the need to move on. Not everybody falls into the trap of needing to buy the next iteration of something just because it's 'New and shiny!')

Last year I gave in and tried TS3. This was right after Gamescom and I was without my gaming computer for a few months and missing simming. I bought the starter pack for $5 (I figured it was worth about that much ) just so I could at least try it instead of despising it on principle. I even bought some of the more appealing EPs when they were on sale. It had its charms (gardening, cooking with ingredients, the revamped skill system) but it's entirely waaaaay too easy, the sims are robotic and lifeless, the traits hardly do anything to distinguish a sim's personality, it's full of bugs, full of lazy animations (cars and pulling baby bottles out of nowhere), full of lazy features (some of the rabbit holes, phones and all clothes for everyone), and many features were just illogical and ridiculous beyond measure (attraction and dating systems, 'inappropriate' behavior, constant rain). Families are boring as hell (I soooo missed the screaming, yowling toddlers of TS2), kids can't do a lot (gardening and piano) and certain core items were left out in order to be sold in the store at extremely inflated prices (changing table and greenhouse). And many of the premium items they introduce in the store are buggy as hell.

So I stuck with it for a few months, trying all the features from the EPS, but it wasn't 'The Sims' that I had known and loved from TS1 & TS2. So when I saw TS4 faces I thought YES! Much more interesting than TS3. I've been looking forward to this game since it was announced last year. I sometimes see the charm in those rare videos they show of 'gameplay footage,' like when the sims are dancing or sitting around a table and talking (oh how I missed that feature in TS3). HOWEVER - I'm not buying just yet for several reasons:

1) No toddlers, and teens being the same height. Those two killed it for me. I don't care about CASt (if it means Mendellian genetics are back - which hasn't been confirmed), I don't mind a non-open world (if it means community lots will be lively again - which no one can confirm until they actually play it), and I don't care about pools (though I know they're going to release them as a separate, overpriced EP/SP/DLC) but no toddlers and no real teens are major negatives and sealed the deal for me.

2) Their ridiculous refusal to show any real gameplay footage makes me think this game is going to be even worse than a buggy TS3-type mess - it's going to be a buggy, unfinished mess. In fact, I already know it based on my above points and how we know it began as an online game and they had to scramble to turn it offline.

3) They say they listen to the fans and yet they don't. If they did, they would have fixed all the bugs in TS3 and added things we really want in TS4, like, hmm, a delay so they can add back in all the missing crap. Emotions do nothing for me, especially since TS2 sims were always emotional. I guess maybe that's their ploy to grab back the TS2 players, or it might be if they didn't always act like TS2 never existed.

I know a couple other TS2-only simmers who were very much looking forward to this game. But that all changed as more and more stuff was revealed as missing. Now they're perfectly content to stay with TS2. Myself, I've pledged not to buy TS4 until the price drops dramatically or toddlers are added back in a reasonable way (meaning via free patch - which I doubt - or as part of a reasonably priced EP - does such a thing exist? )

No toddlers are a huge thing for me as well, and in all honestly I'm probably not more than one (maaaaaybe two) announcements of something being cut away from cancelling my preorder. But I really want TS4. The teen height thing is weird and will be annoying at first but I'll adjust - I assume there'll be some way to tell adults & teens & young adults apart...? :S Tbh, I doubt another delay would have gone down any better than the current situation.

One question - what is CASt? People keep using the term as if it's similar to, but distinct from, CAS. What's the difference?

I actually started with the Sims 3.
I was in 7th grade at the time and I really liked simulations but had never really found one that let me do whatever I wanted. When I found out about Ts3, I had researched it for about a month and then finally bought it bundled with the Supernatural EP.
I loved it so much.
I bought a lot of the other expansions, but I wanted more. I ended up buying The Sims 2 Double Deluxe. It didn't really run well on my computer then (Windows Vista 32-bit) so I didn't play it too much. Then I bought a bundle of Ts1 + majority of EPs included with some Ts2 EPs.
Ts1 had a nice charm to it, it was very enjoyable.
My old computer was very old and my Ts3 game crashed a lot

When I got my new computer, I installed all of Ts2 and Ts3 and they run nicely, especially Ts2, which I love to pieces.
The Sims 2 is my favorite now, but I play them all.

Sorry for the long post but no, I didn't skip the Sims 3.

CASt is Create a Style. It's an ingame feature that allowed us to recolour or change the texture of almost any furniture item.
Something like this

Ah - that's purely Sims3 so I won't miss it :P
I was always bad at matching patterns/materials/etc on the times I tried that

It was useful, especially for people who loved to build. I'm not one of them so I rarely used it in build/buy mode. But it was nice to not have to search the internet for a certain couch or dress in a fuchsia leopard print, if that's your thing.

I used it more to make different colored outfits for my sims in CAS. I rarely used any of the patterns though. I preferred solid colors.

It had two drawbacks (IMO):

1) Because everything was colored to order, all those textures and colors could take a while to load. So my sim would walk into her house and everything inside it looked like blocks of white styrofoam as the game loaded all the textures and colors. Not game-breaking, just annoying. Maybe this wasn't an issue for those with better computers, I don't know.

2) Hair and eye colors could be any color you want (similar to the color wheel in that above photo) which meant the death of Mendellian genetics (recessive vs dominant genes). That was one of the features I adored about TS2 and it kept me playing humongous families just to see what eye and hair colors would pop up later down the line. With an infinite number of choices, nothing was recessive or dominant. I honestly don't know if it was a 50/50 option or how it worked because I didn't have enough kids in TS3 to test it. But the genetics were also borked in that a child could inherit a parents' dyed hair, which was just stupid. I like that they've given us so many options for TS4 hair, eyes, and skin, but there's been no word on whether it will work like TS2 or TS3.

I don't think any Sims game could would capture the magic TS2 had, as it was all new in true 3D. TS3 more of a remake than a sequel, and how much I wanted to like it, I had given up on it with just a few months, it just failed to get me hooked, so yeah I rather forget TS3 ever existed.

I really hope Mendellian genetics makes a comeback
I'm looking forward to the search by colour option - hopefully it applies to furniture as well as clothes!

They also *said* TS4 would work on lower end machines, so hopefully no styrofoam blocks this time! :P

No, I did not skip Sims 3.

Missed a few things about Sims 2, but overall, I like TS3 a lot better. All except the laggedy lag lag and crashedy crash crash.

I would miss the open world and CASt from TS3 going into TS4 a lot more than I missed anything from TS2 going into TS3.

Well, if you didn't buy the Sims 4 and kept playing the Sims 3, you really wouldn't be missing anything.

Totally skipped TS3 so when I heard TS4 was coming, I was intrigued. I'd been put off by tales of story progression that didn't work properly, no fears, no memories, lack of attention to age groups other than YA, borked genetics, teleporting into cars and yes, I'll say it, I hated the appearance of the Sims themselves. I hoped TS4 would be the sequel I'd been waiting for. Alas, while I like the look of the Sims themselves and it's giving me back rotational gameplay (although I would've preferred options for both rotational gameplay AND story progression, purely because I know other people want it), too much is missing for me to give it a chance right now, if ever.