Oh boy, I'm really liking how you immediately jumped to the conclusion that I'm pissing myself in anticipation for this game. It's like you people are completely ruling out the idea of any sort of grey area in this debate.
I'm completely neutral as to whether or not people like the game or not, I'm just tired of the snarky, condescending, holier-than-thou attitude people are adopting. And that goes for people on both sides of the argument.

I think it's completely healthy for people to rant about TS4, there's a shit ton of issues that need to be addressed. But for the love of Christ, get off your high horse. You can agree to disagree without acting like you're on some sorta next level plain of superiority.

OK, am I the only one who sees the irony in this post?

Shhhh, shhhhhhh, shhh. I know, I see it too.
It'd just be nice if we could let each to their own, I guess.

Me neither. However, I want EA to realize they can't make terrible games without consequences (that being: no sales). I also want EA to stop trying create a fake environment like "everything is fine, no-one complained about the game today either, what a wonderful day. What did you say???? OPS *Deleted*. Now, where were we... right. No complaints at all!"-environment.

So I think it's pretty important to complain so it makes people think twice before buying. Not preventing them from buying if they like what they see.

Unfortunately, I think a large part of it is brand loyalty, and EA is extremely aware of that. They know that they don't have to put *quite* as much effort into the game, because even if they slip up they'll still make a profit. Simply because it's such a well-received franchise.
If they actually took a hit to their sales because of their laziness, then that'd definitely be a different story. Sigh.

No, but this is how it goes.

Giddy up, llama! Woo-Hoo!

They would if people exercised some critical thinking and refrained from throwing their money at EA every time the cash cow got milked.

But that's another issue. People will play the "my money" card and refuse to take ownership of their role in EA's little dance. One step forward, two steps back. Why does this keep going on? Because people are more than willing to keep on dancing. They expect to buy the same EPs every four years and are "grateful" when content doesn't get stripped from the base game.

They're the ones whose money EA is after and they feel they should be "grateful" to EA?

It's fucked up.

Exactly. I think EA has been so safe because their younger player base don't have much experience with other games, and therefore they don't demand things other gamers see as obvious.

Moreover, they have no competition at all. I don't know about any patents or so, but there must be someone that can make up a better game.

That's true. I like to think I'm doing my part to some degree by not buying the thing, and making my disappointment in the product as clear as possible. But if someone really wants to get it, I'm not gonna jump down their throats about it.
I also hate to sound like I'm giving up, but EA seems very efficient at deflecting criticism so it looks pretty uncertain right now. :p

I believe there is some people out there who truly love what they are seeing and they can't wait to play it. I think that is perfectly fine and their choice.
What I just can't deal with is the whole "I don't use that and therefore is totally fine to remove it" mentality. And then it continues to "you are bunch of whiners, if you don't like the game, stick to the old one". That is also not the point. We knoe we won't buy it and we will play with our puddings (XD LOVED that) or whatever it is. The point is, we were all excited about having a new AND improved game and we are not getting it. It is dissapointing.
For me it was the no cast and no toddlers (well yes, i don't like the way sims look now), but mostly cast.

EA, with The Sims franchise:

Despite being a TS3 player, I was kkkkind of able to accept the lack of CASt? Not at first, but the rest of the game seemed promising enough at the time that I was willing to overlook it.
The partially closed world was fine if it meant there would actually be something happening on community lots. But the toddlers thing was ridiculous, and the fact that teens/adults/elders all essentially have the same body model was a huuuuge let down. Also the price, what the hell? $60??

*takes cigarette out of mouth*

*exhales smoke all up in yo grill*

I hope modding is a bitch and I hope recolours are next to impossible to find. I hope the only options are to pay outrageous fees on The Store. Then maybe you would all have appreciated everything CASt did for the game, instead of bitching about five seconds of loading or how "difficult" it was to click a piece of furniture and then a few patterns.

Yeah, I'm the bitter in this lemon, lime and bitters of a board.

I pretty much agree what everyone here just said.

It fucking sucks. All of it. The fact that the loyal cattle keep buying anything with a plumbob on it, the fact that EA censors any criticism to make it seem like it's the Holy fucking Grail, the fact that EA doesn't need to try to get a profit because let's face it, they are the only ones who can do it, and do it well. EA knows it, and they milk every last drop out of it. They know they can do something amazing; they have the staff, the creativity, and especially the money. But, being the greedy, incredibly devious fat cats they are, they know that they can make a half-assed product and loyal buyers will still flock to the stores to get a copy.

We are a case of the vocal minority. We may sit here and rant about how much the new game is just a pile of pixelated horse shit disguised as a game, but there are quite a few sheep who are willing to turn a deaf ear. The official forums are overflowing with these kinds of people.

Honestly, I feel powerless. No one is going to listen, and over time, everyone will just get the Sims 4 because they rehashed some expansion pack from the Sims 2 again and it seems better then the other games. Basically, resistance is futile, like it or not.

Who said CAST was hard? CAST was a god send. I hated waiting to load up patterns every time I played, but it was worth the wait for a chair that matched the rest of the room.

Why have buy mode and a recolor tool if nothing matches? Shapes of furniture are just as important at the materials. This is quite true of TS3.

"A safe place for TS4 disappointment"

i thought that was TS4's chat thread

I thought that was the entire Sims community right now.

Will Sims 4 be a pile of shit. Highly likely. Can we save the franchise? No. It will either die or be shitty. Doesn't really matter which. I'm sure Sims 5 will make Sims 4 look like an f'n marvel of gaming legend.

Sims 5: The Hole. It's one hairless, featureless Sim in a hole. They cry and defecate......forever. *click* on Sim. Do you cry or defecate? The choice is yours! Coming winter of 2018! Don't forget to reserve the first expansion pack Sims 5: A pubic hair. It's a single pubic hair to drop in your Sims hole! Cry, defecate, or look a pube, the choice is yours!

This is about equal rights.

As long as there are threads with rules that forbid critical thinking and negative feedback (e.g. "safe to be excited" thread where critical posts are deleted), it's only fair for us to have threads that forbid blind optimism and EA ass-licking. If "excited" players can have a safe thread, there should be one for disappointed players as well.

You can't say that the entire site is "safe" because the mods aren't filtering blind optimism.

They are, however, filtering critical posts.

It does seem to be localized to MTS. We the bad boys of.....playing with virtual doll houses. TSR is all butt grins, and shit faced enthusiasm. Kinda makes you wanna poke their eyeballs, and I don't even really care whether TS4 blows or not mind you. I never expected EA to step up and blow us away. What everyone fails to realize is the Will Wright left Maxis in 2009. He is morbidly intelligent. Without him.....you have a bunch of college graduates trying to "improve" the work of a renowned genius.

They're college graduates? I thought they were frat boys.

For the contents that we get the game should be $30, and I'm being very generous. Very few people seem to care about it; that's extremely disappointing!

The Sims 4 is not out yet, so I can't really judge it. However, after the scam that the Sims 3 was, seeing that some people are willing again to accept EA's hogwash promise no hope for the future. That's what disappoint me the most, not the pool, not the toddlers. I love the Sims, but I stop getting what I'm paying for around Showtime.Worse, it seems like it's going to be like that for a long time too since they have the nerve to charge $60 and some people pre-ordered the $100 Collector Edition when they don't even know the specs.

... you see people excited for a "free" demo, as if demos are not supposed to be free. :^(

I have too many stories I want to play in TS3 that I've not had time for yet to spend a lot of energy bashing EA for the direction they are taking. As disappointing as TS4 promises to be, and it promises to be exceedingly disappointing, I can go on playing TS3. Plus, my TS3 is bought and paid for already. Bonus!

Really? I glanced at the official forums and the front page at the time seemed to be the same kind of thing as we have here. The people running The Mares' Nest seem to be in the same boat as well. I don't browse the TSR forums or any other ones other than this right though so I don't know what their stance is. The Sims tags on tumblr do actually seem pretty positive though, I've noticed and the /r/thesims subreddit is pretty evenly split.

I had no trouble with Cast, only exception being when I had a weaker system. If only we could have some sort of "external Cast"...