What would be really good is if they have rabbit-hole rooms: say a 6 x 6 or something similar room with walls on the outside (that you can cover with whichever wall covering you prefer) and flooring on top (ditto) and one or more doors you can CAST, that can then be fitted into a bigger building. It would be the kitchen of a restaurant or an office in the office building - there would maybe be one for business and another for the journalists - or the police room in the police building, and sims would go there for their job. And then you could fill the rest of the building with whatever else you wanted: maybe a gym for the police? (or the business people) or an office with desks?

And then the restaurant could have one or more rooms filled with tables and a couple of npcs (or maybe sims with part time jobs? except you shouldn't have to actually control them) to be waiters and they would bring your food out of the rabbithole kitchen and serve it to you. The supermarket could be similar, with a rabbithole store room and shelves filled with food to buy.

I completely disagree with the open world concept. When I played TS and TS2, the foundation of the game was the continual replenishment of the sims' motives. That's what kept me going. After about 2 day/night cycles, I would get tired of playing the same family, and switch to another. In TS3, there are no individual save slots for each household; it's just one big slot for the entire neighbourhood - hence "an open world". This means that besides the family you are currently playing, you lose control of all other sims in the neighbourhood. If you switch families (the game quickly gets boring if you don't), then switch back, the motives are all randomized, and you lose your sense of accomplishment, since the AI had been controlling them up until you took the reins back.

The "open world" is all hype anyway. What would you really be missing if it was taken out? The terrible "loading screens" were caused by the slowness of older computers, and would not be present in a newer game. You would still enjoy the neighbourhood view, you cannot see sims going to work, or eating at diner, or grocery shopping anyway - they are all rabbitholes. The only thing you would miss, really, is the car ride from one lot to another, and that is an excellent tradeoff, in my opinion, to get back our household save slots.

The only thing I kind of wonder when it comes to open world, and I think they probably will have a lot of thinking to do, is if they "deactivate" a certain portion of the world, what happens to those Sims? Do they suddenly stop going on with their lives? I mean I almost thought, "Oh, but it works for games like Skyrim." Then I realized that if you never go to a certain region of the world, nothing ever changes. I don't really care either way, I just hope that if there is parallel aging or whatever, that they will at least have a better fashion taste, for the love of GOD. That's why I make all my own townies in TS2. I literally boolprop "edit it CAS" when I play TS3 constantly just so I can edit all the Sims' clothes, lol!

I actually like the rabbit hole jobs in Sims 3 for family members (with max free will) that I don't want to pay attention to all the time. For my playing style, I have one or two main characters and the rest are support to make random stuff happen. This means I can't be bothered to baby sit all of them all the time. Rabbit holes help with that.

Normal buildings for jobs is a nice idea, but I just don't think that EA can pull of smart enough AI for sims to stay on their job. They would end up getting fired after running off to are watch someone playing the guitar on the other side of the street. Or to play with a sprinkler.

Oh, reminds me, TS4 needs sprinklers.

This is rather a good idea.

How about one large map that you could potentially partition into certain areas that could individually work as an open hood? This would be a good compromise without the extra lag.

Open world is a waste of time and is a superficial window dressing for masking Sims 3's vapid playing. No more load screens, sure, but at the expense of empty neighborhoods, lots, and events. Seasons EP advertised big grand seasonal events your Sims and their friends could visit. When I visited, no one was ever there; it was a ghost town. I blame this on the games haphazard story progression, but also the open world and the fact that now the game has to load an entire town and all the Sims within it rather than just a simple lot.

This week I started playing Sims 2 again after dropping Sims 3 for the last time (Seasons being boring was the last straw) and I visited a random shopping center lot in Strangetown, and low and behold! At least 12 Sims! Hey, it's Bella, my brother is dating her, maybe we should meet up and spend time together! Hey, it's my friend I just called to come over and he said he couldn't make it! That rascal! Time to play a prank!

More than that, I was dining, I was bowling, I was clubbing, and other Sims were ACTUALLY THERE! Wow, Sims interacting with other Sims! That's something I haven't seen in a while! *eye roll* This is compounded by the fact that rabbit holes are PROBABLY a direct consequence of choosing the open world route. I'll take load screens over stripping away interactivity so I can stare at a building for five minutes, thank you very much!

It seems we've traded loading screens (that take all of 2-5 seconds to load on my modern machine) for...uh, nothing, I guess. What exactly does an open world ADD? Does it make the town more believable? No. Does it enhance gameplay? No. But I can think of plenty of BAD things is does to hamper the playing of the simulation.

Open world is one of the biggest buzz word failures in all of gaming. Do not fall for it. All you'll get is a shit sandwich.

I suspect that your problem is not so much with the open world, but with EA's half assed implementation of it.

Look, there is absolutely no reason clubs, bowling alleys, parties could not be packed to the gills with sims. The game could either Shanghai existing sims and bring them to a venue where your active sim is located, or it could simply create random sims. It's just EA did not want to take the time and spend the money to write the code to do this.

So we end up with empty bars. But this was a design decision by EA.

Obviously, they did not engage in the same degree of half assery with the Sims 2, but they could have just as easily.

i imagine the base game to be like 7-10 GB

That may be your machine but as I recall, there was a thread either on this forum or the old TS2 BBS where people were talking about load times on TS2 up to 20 mintes and some either longer

Open world is nice but it seems like we give up too much in order to enjoy it. For some reason I don't enjoy having more than 3-4 sims in Sims 3. The only thing I like about the world being closed is you can have larger families that can be managed. I can take a couple on a date off-world and not worry about the other people in the family at all. The sims AI just isn't good enough for an open world yet imo, which is why we need so many mods to make it somewhat worthwhile but even then it isn't good enough. If they can do it perfectly then yes, give us an open world again but for goodness sake do it properly this time.

Baring in mind the sims 3 began production at least as early as 2007; I would hope that huge improvements in AI have already been thought up in that time... I mean, this will (probably) be their second attempt at open world, so I would hope improvements have been made across the board in terms of engine efficiency & actual sim behaviour.

@Issie, I don't think it's the open world that is causing you and me to prefer to have fewer sims to control in a household, I have a feeling the game has become *too busy*. There is so much to consider for the full development of each sim. I have actually changed my playing style so that rather than limit the number in any household, I focus on developing just one sim in that family, and only bother to control the others where I need to in order to help the progress of my focus sim. Then he or she is the one I follow around and take out to do things in the open world.

I do sometimes switch to another household but then I tend to disable aging and story progression for the duration so my main sim will still be pretty much as I expect to find her when I switch back.

I tend to micromanage my sims so this is why I probably wouldn't be able to do it. I could try and do it but probably end up checking to see what they get up to regardless...

When I did play Sims 3 a few months ago I still had the problem of babies dissappearing even with aging and story progression disabled. Maybe that's been fixed since I played last (been awhile cos I just gave up with so many problems related to gameplay).

Of course there will be open worlds! That's the thing thing that made The Sims 3 for me :3

Well.. EA/Maxis can do anything I guess but if they do it's a step back so I'm hoping the open world stays. I'd be sorely disappointed if we went back to a Sims 2 style closed world.

You don't have Ambitions?

I think the game will have more sections in area that aren't rendered right away unless your Sim travels to it.

I don't play many other games that do that but an easy example is even in Sims Castaway. Small, yes, but the same idea, and the sections of map were loading screens but very fast to load. There are lots of games way back in 2000 that were already doing this but much more advanced of how it was rendered and nothing like Sims Castaway maps.

I think what is coming in the next game is already in TS3 you just have to see it differently. Blue prints is one feature I am sure will be a major feature in the next game and maybe even modules placed and Simmers no longer building lots like we do now.

Things get put into the current games that are new, improved features (per their view) of the next to come. And I do believe blueprints will be the only way to build something in the next game...but even on a grander scale like modules.

I also believe Rabbit holes make a return and these new tools just allow Simmers to create their own rabbit holes. You know how the criminal building in TS3 keeps changing into anything they want to call it..a cave, etc. I just think these new tools will now be available to players.

Also, IP's EP will allow us to place a rabbit hole marker for lack of a better word and build around it..I think the new tools will be all about that feature, too.

But again, on a grander scale. I think the free lance building style will be gone..but that is just my silly opinion. I'm just looking at what they are adding into TS3 now that is probably already implemented into how TS4 actually works.

I do believe Simmers will also get a chance to add their own roads in game..I think they are borrowing technics from Sim City....modules being one of those features.

But I also have to agree with another poster on here, even if it is joke. They said they are returning to their roots and that is the Sims..so the focus isn't on an open world or even Story Progression this time but the Sim and to me that means less open venues, and maybe not even freestyle building of homes.

Problem with this is, if they don't change it then it wont be any different to Sims 3 at all. What exactly would be the point of Sims 4 then? It already inhibits way too many things. We are supposed to "image" what is happening majority of the time. If they continue this way I just don't see it being very popular. In my opinion this gets more far away from a Sims type game and is becoming something rather different.

In all honesty I don't mind some places being a rabbithole (for example certain workplaces ie. office clerk) but everything else should be functioning. Proper working restaurants! Just give us the tools and allow us to create our own worlds.

Freedom please, I don't want to follow the road that EA sets for us.

I think, open world will be featured in TS4.

Seeing the simple cartoonic look of sims in TS4, it definitely made to accommodate the open world.

um..... I mean that if they don't do it they'll just go a step backwards . And if they won't EA is crap! I'm sad that we could'nt see are our sims in the sims 3 in community lots ... i'm not talking about the parks etc but like schools hospital oh! and yeah when they buy book?? why not. They should try adding seperate clothes shops for our sims and show as if they're just practically........... us! I'm really tired with the work hard and slack off thingies!! Hope they'll do something innovative and better this time!

It wouldn't necessarily be a step back on some terms. At least we might have people in the same place as our sims (think TS2 community lots vs. the TS3 community lots). Of course, it's be a whole lot better if EA'd just FIX THE SYSTEM instead of leaving it borked or going back to the old version of 1000 and 1 loading screens. I've gotta say -- after the open world thing wore off I was mighty disappointed. But at least we got to visit other people's houses in TS3.

It'll probably have an open world. I just hope it's a better one.

Can I ask: what are modules? Thank you.

I've been thinking about how could TS4 community lots (and the whole world) feel more alive. So here's my idea: Instead of having 5 sims in a community lot who are trying to fulfill their needs and do random stuff why not have 15+ sims but they do some generic interactions specifically attatched to the certain type of the lot. By this I mean for example:

In a park: a young teenage couple cuddling on a bench, a senior man reading his newspaper, a pretty woman talking over the phone walking down the street, a kid running with a kite, some sim stopping by the fountain and drinking water etc. (these kind of interactions which are sort of in the background and it's up to you which routine you will "break").

In a cafe/bistro: a family eating with their child (making noise, disturbing a sim and he/she reacts according to their personality), a single sim sitting alone and reading and having coffee (while you can go there and join them/have a date/conversation), suspiciously dressed men discussing crimes etc.

These 15+ sims per lot are randomly selected from the world and become more "alive" when you interact with them and when you walk away they continue their routine or change to some other thing while another randomly selected townie replaces them. And so it would not become too dull there would be negative situations which happen occaisonally. For example a car crash (where you can interfere and help) or a robbery on the street.

I hate storyprogression, frankly, Twallan's version is a vast improvement, but I've always had a hard time sticking with one thing for a long time, so I prefer rotation play so I don't get bored so much, Sims 3 just doesn't let me do that, even with mods it's not the same.

But it seems a lot of people like the open world, so my dream is that you will be able to chose between Sims 2 style where all your other families are basically completely in stasis when you aren't playing them and nothing will change unless you interact with them by phoning them, or going to a community lot, and Sims 3 style. In Sims 3 even if you disable SP other neighbourhood sims will still get bumped into different jobs to be bosses or co-workers for your sim, or to perform in a Sim Fest and bullshit like that, and they still age unless you have a mod to disable *that* as well.

But that will probably never happen because EA is too goddamn lazy to take the time to do that. So I'll just have to hope that either they will ditch the open world notion completely or that Sims 4 SP will be a hell of a lot more interesting and less shitty and glitchy then Sims 3s.

I don't mind rabbithole jobs, but I want my proper restaurants and bookstores and grocery stores back!

Maybe one of the mistakes they made with TS3 was for everyone in the 'hood to be residents of the town. There is no reason why they couldn't program it to have a certain number of randomly generated sims show up on every lot. That way, if all the sims in your neighborhood were working or busy when you visit the park there could still be sims show up there.

The problems in TS3 would not have been insurmountable, providing EA had been willing to invest the money needed to fix them. Or better yet, do them right to begin with.

I hope the company has come to the realization that sales will continue to drop off if they keep putting out work that is half-assed. But I guess time will tell.

The RH markers (or whatever they choose to call them) would really be ideal for everyone, because the people who don't want to micromanage their sims at work could still customize the building and the sim could enter the "RH room" where they do their work. And that way, as soon as those of you who want to micromanage your sims get tired of performing the 5 interactions they give each sim to do in each career over and over, you could still switch back to Rabbit Hole jobs.