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Field Researcher
#176 Old 28th Oct 2014 at 8:12 PM
Quote: Originally posted by SimGuruGraham
Fans mistakenly think that developing The Sims is easy. It is not.

To compare what Skyrim does to what Sims does shows a clear misunderstanding of what the technical demands of the two games are.


EA has had 14 years experience working on the Sims series to get it right. Is it right or even better, yet?
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Lab Assistant
#177 Old 28th Oct 2014 at 8:40 PM
I think the problem with a game like the sims is that your not going to be able to please all the people all of the time. I think with the sims 4 EA have tried to address some of the issues which the sims3 had and in doing that have had to make some major compromises, or worse in some cases by leaving things out. And in the rush to get it out (when i do beleive it probably wasn't ready) they have alienated a large proportion of the community. As most people seemed to like the idea of an open world but don't want the lag, nor do they want to have to have a very highspec machine to play it. EA's response was slightly extreme in my opinion and as many people have suggested open world in the mini neighbourhoods wouldn't have compromised performance that much, and the list could go on. I'm guessing if another developer decides to try and make something similar it won't be an easy thing to do if they are going to avoid the mistakes that EA have made in the latest installment.
Test Subject
#178 Old 17th Nov 2014 at 5:03 PM
Oh man, I loved Skyrim!
Bethesda certainly knows how to make games.
I would love to see a Sims type game made by them!
I bet it would blow Maxis out of the water.

They know how to optimize.
They know how to make wonderful looking games (Sims 4 looks very very nice, but I'm just pointing that out).

Now I really want a Bethesda Sims game!
Test Subject
#179 Old 17th Nov 2014 at 5:50 PM
I think it would be geared towards an older audience, with politics and violence. The Sim-creation process would be more elaborate, with more stats..
Field Researcher
#180 Old 17th Nov 2014 at 5:52 PM
Quote: Originally posted by H20
I think the problem with a game like the sims is that your not going to be able to please all the people all of the time. I think with the sims 4 EA have tried to address some of the issues which the sims3 had and in doing that have had to make some major compromises, or worse in some cases by leaving things out. And in the rush to get it out (when i do beleive it probably wasn't ready) they have alienated a large proportion of the community. As most people seemed to like the idea of an open world but don't want the lag, nor do they want to have to have a very highspec machine to play it. EA's response was slightly extreme in my opinion and as many people have suggested open world in the mini neighbourhoods wouldn't have compromised performance that much, and the list could go on. I'm guessing if another developer decides to try and make something similar it won't be an easy thing to do if they are going to avoid the mistakes that EA have made in the latest installment.


I don't know if it's that so much as the fact that even EA doesn't seem to know what it wants to do with the Sims. Is it a life simulator? A drama simulator? A fantasy life simulator? A micro-managey goal simulator? They kind of cobble all these pieces together to create a tonal mess. "I get up in the morning, have a nice bowl of cereal, go to work to be an interstellar smuggler for eight hours, then come home and clean the toilet." To me, you're appealing to two different demographics with that mess, the people that was the over-the-top sci-fi fantasy of being an interstellar smuggler (except you're not really appeasing them because there's no real indication of what they do for a living outside of some reskinned objects that really don't DO anything since emotions are pretty much meaningless in this game) and the people who want a life simulator (except those people are going to be disappointed because who in the real world is an interstellar smuggler?). What they should do is split their team between the Sims games and the Sims spin offs like Medieval where they can really explore those over-the-top silly ideas within the sims mechanics.
Field Researcher
#181 Old 17th Nov 2014 at 5:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Zennia
EA has had 14 years experience working on the Sims series to get it right. Is it right or even better, yet?


He's not wrong, though. But neither are you. They have plenty of experience working on the Sims but have they really taken it in the best direction or showed that they're learning lessons that improve the project? I feel like pretty much anyone else could do a better job at this point, largely because they would respect the project beyond just how big of a payday it would provide for them.
Smeg Head
#182 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 3:06 AM Last edited by coolspear1 : 23rd Nov 2014 at 4:49 AM.
It's not that another top quality games developer has not seriously considered entering into the people simulator market. They look at the sales figures EA have generated over the years with the Sims franchise and drool in envy. Why would anyone set out to make another FPS in an already saturated market? Even if it were a fantastic best-of-the-best FPS, it would still only get a very thin slice of a well eaten pie. However, the people simulator pie, only Maxis sitting at that table, so there's lots of rich pie to be had. But therein lies the problem. Maxis. Not the games developers themselves, but we, the Sims community, as an extension of Maxis. Thousands of Sims websites all over the globe, all promoting the Sims, all promoting Maxis and, of course, EA. (CocaCola would give Santa's left red nut to have that kind of free global advertising infrastructure.)

Another games developer would have to pull something special out of the hat to win over such a community. To catch the community at the hate end of the Maxis love-hate relationship. That time would seem like now more than ever. Yet at the very least, a sales advertisement for their new upcoming people simulator, would also be, in part, an advertisement for the already existing Maxis EA Sims franchise. Releasing a new FPS that's compared against a thousand others, no big shakes. But the one-to-one comparisons with the only other long-standing and still mostly beloved people simulator? It would be never ending and too much of a risk that it could backfire on a new product. The new developer's marketing strategist team will not like this scenario one bit. More over, the release of a rival simulator that could genuinely be a serious challenge for a big piece of that massive pie, would only be a kick up the butt for lazy, sleepy old Maxis. So then what? Maxis up their game - EA prodding at them with big sticks. They tidy up their slack practices. They quit relying on independent modders to fix that ever-so-hard coding they keep talking about, and get it ship shape themselves, pronto. After all, they've had the best part of nearly two decades tinkering at this malarkey. What Maxis has left on the cutting room floor, other devs could only dream of using in a rival base game - (Did anyone mention Toddlers yet? Yes, they have. Repeatedly.) Just one serious kick up the behind might set Maxis on the path to Sims glory once again. They knew how to do it once, and could so easily once again.

There's no way a new developer is going to try to cut in on that dance between Maxis and the Sims community. They'll just wait in the wings for Maxis to run its people simulator into the ground, EA to sack them off, and then, as the dust settles on the dead corpse, the race will be on as many new game developers rush in to grab chunks of that untapped (Only one previous owner.) pie.

Who knows, maybe even CocaCola might try with a people simulator.
Field Researcher
#183 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 6:22 AM
For me it would be a dream-come-true: a mixture out of Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim - and Sims!
The adventures, stunning landscapes, cities, all that magic, alchemy, the guilds (how I loved the thiefs!), all the fighting- and sneaking-moves, the deep story (and much more) from The Elder Scrolls - and the social life from the Sims.
I really, really wished it a thousand times!

ElderScrolls-heroes have nearly nothing to do when they are at home, hardly any romance, no children (except from mods), no real friedship, no "coming home and be welcomed", if you know what I mean.
And Sims can't go out on adventures!

A combination of those two aspects... I would LOVE it!!
Scholar
#184 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 7:17 AM
Quote: Originally posted by coolspear1
There's no way a new developer is going to try to cut in on that dance between Maxis and the Sims community.


I think you nailed it. Being the first one to ever do so for me personally. Just that sort of a complicated and senseless relationship in which we keep getting the short end of the stick. (Our endless discussions... It's a stick, right? Why would we want it?! At least it's short!) Granted, they are the only ones that can give us our fix. Like a dealer, EAxis pushes its rotten tomatoes at us, and we are helpless in getting hit with them.

Still, I think this is changing as we speak. A new simming era is on the horizon, I can feel it. There WILL be others, and pretty soon. Call me silly or naive, but that's what I see: a new era in this very relationship has already began. because this is not the first Sim game they messed up. First, it was the TS3 - so many unsolved bugs and so much money wasted on stuff that never actually worked. We value our Sims more than that. We want them to be better, optimized, simulated. Now, it's TS4 - they didn't fix the falling-off that happened with their customer base. Rather, they deepened the rift.

We are deeply disappointed, worried over things we previously took for granted: what genre is it anyway? Is it even a simulator? Is it about "drama" or "voyeurism", or is it something else? And where are the toddlers?! Teens?!

Worst thing is, EAxis seems to have forgotten what it was anymore. In a word, our Sims are now less, or different. And our Sims are what matters, right? We want them safe and quirky and charming and simulating... and EAxis doesn't seem to know how to give them to us anymore.

So, we are watching, waiting. Patiently. We are certain someone somewhere will take this project over, it would not die - it is too big and loved to die out. It doesn't need to be EAxis, this point we'd already reached, even if we'd not already realized/verbalized it.

Or at least such is my belief: we are ready for a new developer, or we are getting ready. It lasted too long, this EAxis-Simmers relationship, and it lost most of its appeal. Anyone who gives us our quirky, yet simulated Sims back will eat the cake in the end. (Or was it a pie?)

The best thing about a good thing is that it inspires a better thing. ♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
Lab Assistant
#185 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 11:57 AM
@coolspear1 That was a great post!
Catching fans at the hate end of love-hate maxis spectrum
I think what Maxis do is catch the fans from the most populous middle ground, so competitors either have to tackle them head on, or find a niche....because I don't think all that 'hate' group are in the same place, or want the same thing.
Forum Resident
#186 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 2:40 PM Last edited by Phoenixfire88 : 23rd Nov 2014 at 2:54 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Candlelight
For me it would be a dream-come-true: a mixture out of Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim - and Sims!
The adventures, stunning landscapes, cities, all that magic, alchemy, the guilds (how I loved the thiefs!), all the fighting- and sneaking-moves, the deep story (and much more) from The Elder Scrolls - and the social life from the Sims.
I really, really wished it a thousand times!

ElderScrolls-heroes have nearly nothing to do when they are at home, hardly any romance, no children (except from mods), no real friedship, no "coming home and be welcomed", if you know what I mean.
And Sims can't go out on adventures!

A combination of those two aspects... I would LOVE it!!


I can see the appeal of a mixture life simulator and a fantasy RPG. However please not by Bethesda and not in the Elder Scrolls universe. I personally never saw the appeal of those games.....

From conversations with friends who like the Elder Scrolls I came to understand that I expect different things from a story to call it deep and engaging than people who like those games. As you pointed out the Character in the Elder Scrolls games (I wouldn't even call him/her a character, I'd call them a player avatar, you need a personality to constitute as a character imho) has no romance that feels like romance, no meaningful friendships, no rivalries nothing (all in the name of giving the player as many possibilities, Jack of all Trades, Master of None)
Since I see a good story as being focused on the characters, their personalities, relationship and growth first, with world building just being there as a window dressing, naturally I don't enjoy a game that flips those two priorities about.

That "beautiful, living world" many praise....to me it becomes a empty desolation.
The "freedom of choice" they advertise..... to me it becomes the freedom to run around in the wilderness doing nothing meaningful.

Good example of a game I almost liked was Dragon Age Origins, I played one of those city Elves, and I loved it, it had my character be part of a community, he had family, friends, a fiance, he seemed alive to me.....and then they ruin it by having you yanked out of there and basically get forced to join the Nights Watch.... yay a reclusive military order, what a novel and interesting concept
If the whole game had been about the City Elves and their community in the Alienage I had loved it! This way....no... I'm glad it was free on origin.

Sims on the other hand is all about characters an their relationships. A fusion of those two aspects would be very hard to pull off without either of them being neglected. We saw with Sims Medieval how that turns out (though realy that was more about neglecting bot aspects and hoping that no one reads reviwes before purchasing it.)

I don't really trust Bethesda to get the social aspect right, not with what they have shown in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout Games.... though there is an idea, imagine Sims in the post apocalypse, not the murky brown blood and steel Post Apocalypse from Fallout 3/New Vegas, but perhaps a bit more campy with blue skinned mutants and stuff like that. It could be a combination of life simulator, community building and survival. You play the families, build their settlement and defend them from all the harm from outside. That sounds interesting.

Quote: Originally posted by BrilliantAzure
I don't know if it's that so much as the fact that even EA doesn't seem to know what it wants to do with the Sims. Is it a life simulator? A drama simulator? A fantasy life simulator? A micro-managey goal simulator? They kind of cobble all these pieces together to create a tonal mess. "I get up in the morning, have a nice bowl of cereal, go to work to be an interstellar smuggler for eight hours, then come home and clean the toilet." To me, you're appealing to two different demographics with that mess, the people that was the over-the-top sci-fi fantasy of being an interstellar smuggler (except you're not really appeasing them because there's no real indication of what they do for a living outside of some reskinned objects that really don't DO anything since emotions are pretty much meaningless in this game) and the people who want a life simulator (except those people are going to be disappointed because who in the real world is an interstellar smuggler?). What they should do is split their team between the Sims games and the Sims spin offs like Medieval where they can really explore those over-the-top silly ideas within the sims mechanics.


I think thats the problem Maxis and the sims Community faces at least since Sims 3. The community is too large and too diverse in what we want. That's why I dislike when people say "Maxis/Ea should listen to Simmers when creating their game" What Simmers? You? Me? What about all the other people who don't agree with either of us? For every opinion somebody has what should be in the game 200 people have a contradicting one. Some play whole neighbourhoods, some want legacies and story progression, some want die-hard realism, some want cartoony fantasy and others want something in between (and can't agree on where in between it should be) some want to skill and reach the top of careers, some want in-depth family play, some want to play swinging singles, some want to explore worlds, some want to play virtual doll house, some want random events to muck up their plans, some want the game to follow their set out storyline and not interfere. That still leaves out the people who don't play that much at all and just like to build and furnish houses.
Even with the graphics nobody can agree some like the warm cartoony style of Sims 4, others want it every single hair and pore rendered with photo-realistic textures.

I'm starting to think it would really be the best if there were a few Sims-like games out there with each putting different priorities first. zThat way we could all have what we want.

....so says the Phoenix! ♥ Receptacle Refugee ♥
Theorist
#187 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 4:02 PM
Quote: Originally posted by coolspear1

Another games developer would have to pull something special out of the hat to win over such a community. To catch the community at the hate end of the Maxis love-hate relationship. That time would seem like now more than ever. Yet at the very least, a sales advertisement for their new upcoming people simulator, would also be, in part, an advertisement for the already existing Maxis EA Sims franchise. Releasing a new FPS that's compared against a thousand others, no big shakes. But the one-to-one comparisons with the only other long-standing and still mostly beloved people simulator? It would be never ending and too much of a risk that it could backfire on a new product. The new developer's marketing strategist team will not like this scenario one bit. More over, the release of a rival simulator that could genuinely be a serious challenge for a big piece of that massive pie, would only be a kick up the butt for lazy, sleepy old Maxis. So then what? Maxis up their game - EA prodding at them with big sticks. They tidy up their slack practices. They quit relying on independent modders to fix that ever-so-hard coding they keep talking about, and get it ship shape themselves, pronto. After all, they've had the best part of nearly two decades tinkering at this malarkey. What Maxis has left on the cutting room floor, other devs could only dream of using in a rival base game - (Did anyone mention Toddlers yet? Yes, they have. Repeatedly.) Just one serious kick up the behind might set Maxis on the path to Sims glory once again. They knew how to do it once, and could so easily once again.

There's no way a new developer is going to try to cut in on that dance between Maxis and the Sims community. They'll just wait in the wings for Maxis to run its people simulator into the ground, EA to sack them off, and then, as the dust settles on the dead corpse, the race will be on as many new game developers rush in to grab chunks of that untapped (Only one previous owner.) pie.



EAxis set the tone long before TS4 was released when they said that they made a game they wanted. I'm the least worldly person when it comes to gaming, but to the best of my knowledge, no other game developer has ever come out with that type of staunch-y attitude and why would they? The developers themselves cannot maintain game sales alone. They need customers and if they poison the well right from the start, then there is a high risk that customers will go elsewhere.

While there are those that like to play up "Haters are never happy...." the fact of the matter is there is at least one common thread between those that don't like the game and those that do. That common area is bugs. It isn't unreasonable regardless of what side of the fence one sits on to expect a developer to fix bugs. No game is perfect, but how such matters are dealt with makes a big difference. A developer that listens to it's customers and fixes stuff is far more credible that one that ignores or only fixes things that are easy or whatever and continues to muck the game up further because they didn't want to put in the time and energy. TS3 is a prime example of this. Instead of fixing things, it turned into a massive pile-on of problems. Without the modding community, TS3 would be unplayble. By mods I don't mean tuning mods that anybody can do. I mean core mods where people dig into the meat of the games code and fix critical issues that the game was shipped with.

I'm not convinced that EAxis would clean up it's act if there were another developer that came out and decided to give them a run for their money. The fear factor may be there initially, but whether it remained on the front of their minds or not, I don't know. Considering their attitudes and how they treat the sims franchise in general, I have zero reason to think that the lesson as it were would be drawn from for long. It would be easier in their minds to cut the 'problem' customers loose and focus on ones that are not familiar with how they do things.

Plunk a developer in front of me that makes a effort and takes pride in what they do and I'll listen to what they have to say. If what they say is solid, I'll seek out what they are trying to sell. If said developer turns out to be insincere and injects toxicity into our business relationship, they would be dumped like yesterday's cat litter. I can only speak for myself, but I'm done as a simmer with being taken for a headache-inducing ride. I will keep and play the sims games I have, but I will not continue to pay to be taken for granted. This isn't something new. From where I'm sitting, EAxis was dabbling with this towards the end of TS2 and it has gotten progressively worse with time. With TS4, the decision was made that the bully-pulpit was their preferred method of making a point and here we are. Once again fans are being accused of being thieves ( another really bad habit that needs to die) and playing the blame game for lackluster sales. EA cannot do anything about people trying to play the game on under-powered laptops, but there is no excuse for how TS4 was shipped.

If there is a snowball's chance in hell that a developer is watching all of this, I say "Bring It!"
Top Secret Researcher
#188 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 8:21 PM
I think Coolspear1 is right, as that is pretty much what happened with Maxis' other big franchise, Sim City. Other companies saw both the initial sales of Sim City 2013, and the reaction of gamers to what they actually got, and from the timing, I think that's when at least one competitor decided it was time to release a competing hardcore city builder. Because currently Sim City 4, which is older than Sims 2, is *still* the gold standard in the genre!

Has Sims 4 failed *enough* for something similar? Jury's still out. But it might be the best thing that ever happened to the Sims - competition.
Instructor
#189 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 8:49 PM
Can't say I'm all for Bethesda replacing Maxis, but hell, bring on the competition. I'd love to see Bethesda creating a similar game as The Sims series.

The Sims 4! Weirder Sims! Aren't they weird!? Look how weird they are! Bet you can't wait to see how weird their stories are!?
Instructor
#190 Old 23rd Nov 2014 at 10:02 PM
it would be like an third person open world epic graphics sims...

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Field Researcher
#191 Old 24th Nov 2014 at 10:05 PM
Quote: Originally posted by MarcyRoars
Can't say I'm all for Bethesda replacing Maxis, but hell, bring on the competition. I'd love to see Bethesda creating a similar game as The Sims series.


Yeah. I don't care if it's Bethesda or whoever, I just want EA to have some competition and have to work a little bit.

But we all know how much they will fight to keep their monopolies.
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