I understand and agree with you completely on the rest of what you said but I really don't get how this relates to any game company developing a game like The Sims. To be honest, making beautiful pre-made character models doesn't really matter at all mostly on the basis of the differing ideals that define beauty amongst everyone around. This point is also kinda invalidated on the basis that this is The Sims where you, as the creator, can make whatever to fit your standards of beauty and if you don't like the premades, there's ways to give them proper makeovers to make them fit to your tastes.

I don't think I would like a Sims game from an RPG maker. The Sims already has way too much rpg in it. "go talk to x about cooking recipies and get a cooking boost". "Become friends with x to get a work boost.".
Ugh, I hate those, but I'll do them everytime...

On the other hand, Bethesda could make it more realistic. No stupid vampires or celebrities, no stupid name-changes like nectar or woohoo. Or how about some physics? In the Sims, every object is like it's nailed to the floor. An option to crash into a house with a car or even just able to knock over art in a museum would be interesting.

You see, Snooty, opinions on this seem to have a clear but polarised split. That's why I say we really need a company to make the other game - the socio-realistic, graphic-realistic simulation one, and then EA to stay on the course they are now - more rpg/lighthearted.

I can actually see Bethesda doing something like that. I think that if Todd Howard were interested in the Sims, he would respect its premise and fans enough not to turn it into a point-and-click RPG. On the other hand, if Bethesda were to make an entirely different life simulation game, I can see the developers taking a more adult route.

Besides, no one can top Rod Humble's attempt to bastardize the franchise. Well, except maybe Rachel Franklin and Ryan Vaughan.

Mostly, that bit was for humor. But if you want to take it seriously..

The models are really haphazard. I get what you are saying, but everything about the models in ES needs work. Which is fine, because most people who play ES games play in First Person mode and spend a lot of time adventuring (where you end up killing whatever humans you find).

The eyes are uneven, proportions are odd, skin tone is strange, eyebrows are wonky. Even with all the customization you can get in Skyrim, its very difficult to make a character that really looks aesthetically pleasing (to me) or realistic (to me).

It doesn't bother me in Skyrim that much. The world is fantastically beautiful and fascinating. They spent so much money on developing what their customers cared about that they didn't dump a lot into their models (which look a lot like they did in Morrowind... with more detailed dirt).

Not to mention the lack of animations and facial expression. You hear your character grunt, but your face is still as placid as if your looking at a crystal clear lake.

Again, I don't hold it against Bethesda. And I wasn't trying to make a judgement on real people's beauty or lack of it. It's game art. And I don't think the models are as well done as the rest of the world.

Woluld Bethesda have given us toddlers and swimming pools in the base game?

Bethesda can't even give us a marriage to a character without changing their voice and flattening out their character into nothing but an annoyingly sweet housewife/husband.

In fairness to Bethesda, Skyrim is not a life simulation game. We're lucky to even have such features in a roleplaying game with dungeons and dragons. The Sims 4 is a life simulation game and it focuses on rocket ships and violent grannies instead of giving us basic aspects of life (e.g. toddlers, swimming pools).

You're upset that a roleplaying game with a heavy focus on magic and fighting didn't get marriage right?

I'm upset that a life simulation game skipped out on a life stage.

I was joking around. Though I still find it annoying how pathetic Skyrim is with voice actors. There's what, five different voice actors in the game? That's what it feels like.
Though I have to say that TS4 has always been a silly kind of life simulation game, so of course it'll add silly aspects. It's a parody of life rather than anything else. But I'm truly hoping that their refusal to add toddlers, by Gram's words, as to 'not shoehorn them in,' means that when they do come back in a content patch or an expansion or whatever else, they won't be as useless anymore, and will have more fun things to do. I'd complain less about them withholding them for now and more about EA clearly having enforced strict rules that forced the developers to constantly drop things from their priority list in order to make it to the deadline.

I know this thread hasn't been active for a while, however, I had an opportunity a while back, before Sims 4 came out, to try a game called Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning from EA, that was offered as a free trial through Origin. That game plays much like Skyrim, made by Bethesda.

BUT

The game has a very cartoon appearance, and objects look like plastic play toys. The game-play is substantially dumbed down from what is in Skyrim. While I can say it was a fun game to play, the depth of the game was lacking. What I find interesting, after seeing what Sims 4 is like, dumbed down from what previous installments had in them, I actually see similarities between Sims 4 and Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning. It felt like I was playing a game geared toward children as the audience. Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning was rated Mature and has much killing in it. Therefore, I am perplexed about the style of the game, as it looks like a game made for little children. This is what I see when I watch Sims 4 Let's Plays. If this is the way EA is going to continue to make games, that look like children's play toys, I'm unimpressed.

On the other hand, Skyrim has an amazing realistic world. That and the game-play feels like the game was made more for adults to play. While I don't play much that is rated Mature, because I don't like a lot of the content in those types of games, I still don't want to play a game that looks and feels like it has been geared toward children 10 years old or younger. The detail that went into creating the world in Skyrim is amazing. When I compare that game to Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning, it blows Kingdoms out of the water. Or maybe, rather, Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning feels very watered down in comparison.

Either way, I can see that the makers of Skyrim put a lot of effort into the game. I have not gotten tired of having a Skyrim character just wander the world, hunt animals and explore. That's my favorite thing to do in that game. I have spent I don't know how many hours just having my character collect things while hunting, fishing and finding things. That world is amazing. If half the effort was put into a Sims world as was put into that world, I would likely get absolutely lost in said Sims game. . .now that would be amazing.

I Played Fallout 3 Goty and Fallout new vegas ultimate edition and would play them up to 8 hours a day and remember my games CTD on me over twelve times or more during those 8 hours and the game lag was horrible at times.

Bethesda uses a terrible engine to run it and rushes out there product without thoroughly checking for bugs, but I was suprised with skyrim and how it only CTD 5 times in a 12 hour play day, but I had limited myself to around 45 mods from nexusmods site and used the built in organizer and limited those mods that used script extender.

Bugs, bugs, bugs! And crappy graphics that are outdated due to ancient technology. (Mostly why I mod the crap out of Skyrim and such games.)
However, a huge open world. With dragons, and robots, and dragons!

Yeah, I wonder this too. I'm curious to see a non EA 'The Sims'. I except something nice from that.

No, but it would give us ALDUIN!

I would hate to see Bethesda tackle a sims type game. They are worse than EA about having to have fans fix their games for them.

It also has graphical gliches dead bodies float in the air! it also relys upon many game enhancing mods and modders.
PS I love bethsheba games and have them all and Sims games they all have their strenghths and weaknesses.

Also available via steam, if that happens to be your online downloader of choice

all games have bugs, its just that unless they truly interfere with gameplay most people choose to ignore them

Well at least the game wouldn't need a colour wheel, it would just be murky, dull earth tones from start to finish.

ROFLOL Phoenixfire88. While I do agree the world could use some more color, it's not completely dull. And I frankly like that better than the candy land look of Sims 4.

I completely missed this thread because I abandoned TS3 at the time and was playing other games. I bet the original poster did not expect that it would develop into such a magnificent skirmish with many a dragon and many a knight involved, a skirmish certainly worthy of Skyrim itself.

One of the games I was playing at the time was Crusader Kings II by Paradox, a legacy game par excellence but no competition to The Sims franchise - you can't lead your kings and their heirs to the toilet. At the moment, as already mentioned here, Paradox is developing a RPG; this is as untypical for them as possible and goes to prove that any developer can start any project he really wants to. Bethesda could certainly start a Sims clone and so could Rockstar and Paradox or anybody else - if they wanted to.

And it's not like nobody has tried. I was surprised when I first learned that this site, MTS, started in 2004 as "Mod The Singles"; obviously Delphy believed, just as I did at the time, that The Singles would become a viable alternative to The Sims. That just did not happen. There were at least two other tries, both of them indie games; I forgot the titles but both were basically text games with some essential static "illustrations". Neither was bad but neither, of course, could become a serious competitor.

I am sure that developers, both big and small, know very well in what a trouble The Sims franchise is ATM and are considering their options carefully; after all. all they need at the very start is something that the original Maxis team had but EAxis teams obviously don't, a solid base scenario. Actually, it's quite possible that such a scenario or even such a game - maybe several - is being developed right now, perhaps by a big company but even more probably by an ambitious smaller one, by people who are still creative and willing to take risks.

I think you hit the nail on the head, pico22, when you said that the original Maxis team had the correct recipe for The Sims, and something has been lost since then.

Well I don't think the original sims was actually targeted at children. There was a darker side and some mature (I don't mean sexual) cynical humor to it.

I honestly want SOMEONE to try their hand at it. Not because I necessarily think anyone could do as good/better job of it as EA (though many/most could) but because EA needs competition to kick it in the pants. If their reaction to the public opinion of Sims 4 is any indication, they do actually listen to criticism as far as their bottom line is concerned. I think a good bit of competition could only help the franchise.

As far as Bethesda is concerned (and really any major company) I think we'd get a decent quality product but most would probably not believe a true "life simulator" would sell and would make it very, for lack of a better phrase, video-gamey, with very concrete goals and conflicts and things to do, rather than an aimless, sandboxy experience.

I don't know. I don't feel so much goal driven when I take my Skyrim character out exploring the world. I can dink around and do all sorts of things, although there are the quests as well. It would be great if someone could figure out that we don't want a quest based Sims game, and competition is healthy.