I've been poking around to see how people are reacting to the trailer. While there will be people that will lay on a sword for TS4, the energy for this game is refreshing. It is reminding me of days past when sims packs were announced and people were genuinely happy about; I'm here for that energy. I've missed it...

It's been a long time since I played stuff like Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, how did it do time in those? I think it's a day by day calendar system, but it still moves by very quickly like time does.

So there is clearly a ton of visual polishing that needs to be done on this but they have at least a year and a half at the earliest before its full launch so I'm not too concerned about that. The animations though look hella rough and I'm not too sure if that will improve or if it can even be fixed via modding. I will say other than that, this looks fantastic. The scope and open-endedness of this is beyond what I was imagining. Customizing whole worlds, workplaces, businesses, and shops (from launch! with no rabbit holes!) is already insane but they even thought to be able to customize the dialogue?! I've seen people say that could get repetitive but I'm thinking by the time the game officially launches, there will already be so much player created content from the early access we might be able to create virtually any experience of our imaginations and thats a wild thought. And it could get quite overwhelming. This is very much seeming to me like a mix between Sims and Second Life and I just hope its a bit more of an accessible and guided experience than Second Life. I don't want to have to watch videos to learn how to play lol.

And also its still early days. This showed the scope of the project very well but I'm still curious about the game mechanics. How will aging work, how does the character creator work, what does playing a family feel like, etc, etc. My interest is extremely piqued to see even more in the coming months, I guess.

I was just pointing out that we had an idea of how fast time was going to pass for the agents, as the scenes were so quick in the trailer. Sorry if I obviously didn't rofl at your hilarity. Here's some emojis to compensate you for your disdain. 😀😁😂🤣😃😄😅😆🤸‍♂️🏋️‍♂️🤾‍♂️🙌👏

It does remind me of good ol' TS2 days, when devs had the professionalism and could contain themselves more than being stoked and breathing like a salesman with overrated emotions to hide apoearant flaws (which there seem to be here none)

Also, can't help by finding this game equivalent to TS3 game (hell. we can call this TS3.2 ) while paralives vibe matches more of TS2 (or what TS4 could have been). Meaning, LBU (shortening) I feel like will be strong with customization and open worldness, while again - falls short on attention to detail and that cheerfulness/vibrantness thing (I know, it's too soon to assume, but it doesn't seem like from this conference that they are focusing too much on that). Other than that, I love this fresh breath of air.

ETA1: I feel aging will be customizabke (hence the emphasize on X Creator/Maker)>

Oh when Snatch joked about sadistic "transmofigations" like with the bush, I though how funny you could make stuff woohoo-able like the bush (*wicked wh....s hello!*)

I'm with you on this. I'm so happy that we have an alternative and that Paradox is so open to feedback and suggestions. I can't wait for the launch. And I'm sure they will give us some familiar DLC... but I would be happy with some fresh new ideas as well.

Maybe Mod the Sims can create a catagory for it after it launches, so we can have discussions about it without taking up space in the Sims 4 forum.

I’m scared it’s gonna be TOO complicated to be fun. I love customisation but I hope the average player doesn’t have to go in and tweak the game to their liking before they can enjoy it. Things like the object editor are needlessly complex for me personally and I feel like they could’ve been included in a standalone program for those who want it. Even the dialogue editor is pushing it a bit, though I can see the benefit of it as well.
I just hope they’re not relying on the players to “make” the game, even sandboxes should have some charm and character without player intervention.

HOLY SHIT!!! I just finished watching the trailer and Gamergirl's early prototype review thingy. Can you say BEYOND ECSTATIC!! THIS is what a life simulator should be. I'm going to miss the Sims Community as I've made so many friends. But RIP The Sims, this looks phenomenal.

"Life doesn't have loading screens" -Rod Humble 2023

It's funny because if I remember correctly, the general consensus was that Rod Humble was responsible for the 'rabbit hole' idea. In Sims 2 Bon Voyage sims could go on excursions, but they just vanished off screen, and you got pop up messages like- 'Sim was flying in a glass-bottomed helicopter when enraged natives began firing poison arrows at them!' You were always left wishing you could actually do that! But, perhaps Rod Humble wasn't the power behind this after all, or maybe he realised he hated it...

I watched the announcement event video. First impression: Rod Humble seems more likable than I imagined, though I do wish he would stop dying his hair. But that, of course, is not relevant. (Or is it?)

Second impression: I certainly don't intend to place houses in vineyards, but that is all I can say about the environment. And I was not all that impressed by the toilet bush - I already have one in TS2.

Third impression: Sims or Cims or TWAA (Those Who Are Alive) or whatever look terrible so far, especially their face expressions. We do have to remember, of course, that it took artists literally hundreds of years to develop formulas for a convincing smile, but finally, they did develop them - why don't designers study them if they, as it seems, want to achieve perfect realism? And why try to achieve perfect realism at all? - More or less the same goes for postures (awkward even in the Create a ... screen - ever heard of contraposto?) and their body language.

Speaking of language: "Simlish" was a first class idea, implemented perfectly in all The Sims games. TWAAs speak English - or, to be precise, they don't speak at all: what they say is represented by bubbles with English text. Sooner or later, this text will be translated into other languages (this job is usually left to the community), but what about the speaking part? Will the little people speak Chinese with the Chinese translation? Or English? Or not at all? Here, developers painted themselves into a corner that Will Wright & Co. avoided most elegantly.

Simlish is gone but the mosaic remains, even when the person in question is behind the bush. (Guess what the first mod will be. No prizes given.) What also remains is a ton of other questions. What about the life cycle? (If it is not implemented in the base game, it is a big no-no for me.) What about school? What about jobs? What does "no rabbit holes" actually mean? (Nobody loved them in TS3, but they were a solution to the problem of tedious jobs; another corner?) What about the seasons? (Probably available as a DLC.) What about pets? (Another DLC - this is getting tedious.) And what about the "creative freedom"? Will we be able to create so much that we won't ever get to actually play the game?

Far too many questions. Hopefully many will be answered before the game comes out but for now, it seems far too risky to preorder.

I like the open world and the flexibility it seems to allow. Script editor in game is really cool.

The sims (cims?) scare the hell out of me and I hate that it's in English. No voices?

Nothing on the little people yet or on game play mechanics. Traits? Preferences? Wishes?

So far, it looks good. But what's the game play like, I couldn't say.

I tend to hope that some things are optional also and we can just play the game as is if wanted. This has been one of my concerns about Paralives that they are so obsessed with the trees that to some degree are missing the forest. I also think there needs to some charm and humor. Too close to real life would be a tad too real/boring to me perhaps? And I have always liked Simlish. I am not sure how well I would like to actually know what they are saying? It will be very fun to see how this develops and to learn more.

This doesn't have to mean that each month will have 30ish days. It could be 10 days for all we know. Or the amount of days might depend on player settings for the seasons.



This all depends on how these features will be presented in the game I think. It could be some kind of 'advanced' setting that you first have to turn on or something. With a clean interface it could be there without feeling too overwhelming for new players or players who are not interested in that. I doubt that for just buying a new object that you will enter that object editor screen.

Even though they didn't show the life stages in the announcement, you can see them in the Object Editor! They are the same of TS2: baby, toddler, kid, teenager, adult and elder. I'm curious how are they gonna handle birthdays since the humans now have proper ages... Are we gonna be able to throw birthday parties when our sim turns 34 from 33 or is it gonna be restricted to the moment a sim transitions from one age group to another?
Jobs are all going to be playable, workplaces will not be rabbit holes and there will clearly be editors for skills and jobs, so my guess is that every job will have a set of interactions attached to it, that sims will autonomously perform in their working hours. Criminals will steal, police officers will patrol, cooks will prepare food, journalists will write articles on their workplace's laptop and interview sims around town. I also expect the basegame to feature ownable shops, which is my favourite thing to do in TS2!
School will definitely work like jobs, so kids and teens will go to a public lot and interact with teachers, attend lessons. Lots will have lot traits, like in TS4, so that the game recognizes a lot as a school and allows all the "school-type interactions" on that lot.

On the topic of language, I prefer this new system. My guess is, real conversations are not obligatory, if you want to focus on Sim A while Sim B speaks with their friend you can do that with no problem. They will probably make noises while talking since they can't create audio for every single line of dialogue. The Real Conversations system is much deeper than what we have in The Sims! We will be able to create themed worlds, like for example medieval towns where characters use proper historical language! We can re-create Veronaville from The Sims 2 with lines of dialogue from Shakespeare's plays! I'm very curious to see how the system works, because from what I've seen in the announcement there are several lines of dialogue that show up when certain triggers are met! For example, if two humans are colleagues they will have dialogue related to work, if they are relatives they will have other lines. I want to see what these triggers are and if they relate to memories, recent events and gossip! I want to see conversations about important events happening around town, for example humans being happy or jealous about a friend's marriage, or them gossiping about family scandals like a betrayal or breakup!

Rimworld had an interesting solution to this in that they smooshed a lot of the months together into just the seasons but still had dates. So it would be like "1st of Aprimay" or "12th of Septober" etc. Or you could do what Stardew Valley does and just say "First day of Autumn" and so on and so on.
Very curious to see how time progression pans out, I don't know how much they'll be catering to generational/family players.

I'm allowed to voice my concerns here, we are allowed to discuss and speculate about all aspects of what we saw here, not just positive. If you don't like that, there's a ignore function.

@Orphalesion Did you miss my obvious jokiness?


Yes, I'm thinking they might use that approach too. sort of like, the dialog boxes are translating the 'simlish'. Will be interesting to see how they deal with this!


I think really that this game seems to be looking at the forest first- they are dealing with the framework, the tools and the mechanisms, and worrying about the polish and shine later. Whereas Paralives- for what I've seen anyway (and I'm not a Patron)- seems to be working on polishing, and not really dealing with the bigger issue. Hopefully I'm wrong!

Notice anything?



When EA posts their promo stuff, up until the release of Growing Together reveal trailer, there has always been tiny text at the bottom of the screen. Said text was a disclaimer that parts of what was being shown was not part of the game. Paradox uses actual game footage. Wow... such a concept. I dare...no, I double-dog dare Maxis to post a two minute video of raw footage from TS5.

Got your ears on, Maxis? Ya'll up for that challenge?

EDIT: For those that have never noticed the tiny text I'm referring to; here it is with HSY pack.

I must admit I got bored with the video after a while and started skipping, so I missed the life stages scenes. I never really doubted that they would include the cycle but I needed a confirmation. As for birthdays, etc.,, they will probably retain The Sims system of 1 day = 1 year; or they might make it adaptable as well, up to the1 hour = 1 hour stage. That would be interesting and I would certainly try it but, I guess, not for long. Probably less than an hour.

Jobs: remember that this is supposed to be a realistic game. How many people with really interesting and exciting jobs do you know in RL? I am very lucky in this sense but I don't think that my job, if seen from outside, would seem to be either. There is a playable fireman's career in TS3, very exciting in principle, but it grew old pretty fast, at least for me - I played it only once. (There are more in TS4 but I haven't played them). The same goes for school: there are no playable lessons in TS3, but there are university lectures where most of the students seemed to be fast asleep, as was I. - Ownable businesses are another matter but they have not been confirmed yet. (Once more, probably a DLC.)

Language: we have to agree to disagree. I prefer the old system primarily because it was simple and universal: an Italian, etc., child could understand it just as well as an American one. The Shakespeare idea sounds cool but, even if somebody took the trouble to recreate Verona and its families and copy all the text, that game would have to run on tracks from the beginning to the end - unless you decided to give it a happy ending, which would destroy the whole point. (And, BTW, has been done a while ago and without a computer.) - Also, the new system will (should?) depend on a multitude of interconnected factors (TWAA's wants, needs and wishes, their memories, their relationships to others, their place in the hierarchy and, as you wrote, gossip and recent events). That's a lot of triggers which demand even more possible reactions. Obviously, the base game will offer some generic solutions which will have to do for a while, but will the system ever be perfected? And by whom? I am sure that players could write good dialogues but such a system demands a lot of cooperation between them and programmers. Will that happen? No idea.

I don't think jobs and school will be boring. I mean, rabbit holes are more boring than following your sim at work because atleast in the second case you can see what they do! Quests seem to be a thing in this game, so I expect jobs to trigger daily mini-quests (finishing a newspaper article, cooking, working out if you're an athlete) or even big missions that last multiple days, like working on a political campaign to get promoted to Town Mayor! Now that would be interesting! I would love job-related quests that trigger promotions and special dialogue with other characters!

Trust me, if this game is a success as I hope and builds a big fanbase like The Sims franchise, there will be hundreds of dialogue lines and quests written by players! We are already creating so much stuff for TS2, TS3 and TS4 as of right now. I've seen Sunset Valley recreated in TS2, Strangetown converted to TS3, save files of TS4 with the premades from the previous games... Simmers are already customizing every possible aspect of the game, Life By You would simply make this customization process easier!!! I'm not a modder so I've never tried creating custom animations or objects. Well, in this new videogame it seems super easy! No need for SimPE or other exterior tools. If a Job Creator is available from the basegame, I can create the career that I want, with a workplace personally built by me, the skills requirements that I deem right, and add missions, quests and dialogue!!!
You're right, this system will require some skills in programming, but you're talking like simmers have not already embarked in big projects to create mods and custom items. Think about Sun&Moon's collectables and crafting stations for The Sims 2! In this new videogame, the same results could be achieved by less skilled gamers simply by using the pre-built tools in the game that allow you to create custom collectables and custom objects in a very fast way!
Basically what I'm trying to say is that modding is a gigantic part of The Sims, so the LifeByYou development team is doing a great job by making modding as easy and intuitive as possible, because they already know we will be modding the hell out of this new game!

Holy shit, I am rooting for this one so hard. Lovely to see a big enough horse making EA finally sweat, they've been way too comfortable for way too long. The Sims 4 is the ultimate proof of it

It feels like you are an optimist and I am a realist, or worse.

Jobs: having to finish an article by a certain deadline (while doing it as well as possible) is exciting for the one who is writing it in RL but not for a player guiding a Sim writer - unless it is the player who gets to write it. But who will then rate it? Who will rate the campaign performance? The game, obviously, but using what criteria? Sorry, but I still think rabbit holes are better: you get to decide what you will do with your Sims' time and watch the meter fill accordingly, but you are spared the sight of them sitting at their desks or standing by their machines for hours.

I know what modders did in The Sims as well as in other games and I am sure that they will do it in this one as well. But will the new tools really be that user friendly? All I know is that history of Sims is filled with broken promises and that I'll believe this one only when I'll see its results.

I dunno how active jobs work in Sims 4, but in Sims 3 they often have you doing different stuff day to day depending on the job. A writer who works at the newspaper for example probably won't sit at their desk day in and day out writing at their computer right? They might be on the phone getting information. They might be out in the field, interviewing people. They might be at the printers checking their work. They might be in a meeting with fellow writers, chatting. They might be presenting a new idea. Etc etc.

I'm imagining tasks that can be done autonomously but can also be handled by the player manually if they want to do the work themselves. Maybe doing so would result in a slight job performance boost since a player can probably be a little more efficient than autonomous action. For example, if you have 3 things you need to get a 100% on for a promotion, the autonomous system might just divide it evenly between those tasks until they're all 100%. A player might be like "Well this one is already at 100% so I'll make them focus on the other two instead". I dunno, something to that affect.

If all jobs will be active at all times, I don't think the goal should be "This must be fun 100% of the time". You'll typically be playing a household, right? So the active careers have to be able to run autonomously when you aren't actively controlling those characters or those characters aren't in your household. I think jobs should be interesting enough to play once in a while with some wildcards thrown in to break up the monotony now and again but also not so complicated that you HAVE to play them for your characters to advance in their careers.

It's really no different that a rabbit hole for the player (if you aren't controlling them). Would you rather watch them disappear into a box or occasionally look over and see them juggle between desk work, meetings, and interviews throughout the day?

All of this is hypothetical obviously.

I prefer following my sim at work and seeing them actually perform actions than waiting for them to come out of a rabbit hole, because atleast I get something to watch! Jobs are not boring, as I've said in my previous post they are implementing quests so there are infinite possibilities for stuff happening at work. An article can get rated based on a character's writing skill for example, and the outcome of the "Write an article" mini quest can change depending on that. The political campaign can be a quest to be promoted to the top of the Politics career, I don't think it necessarily needs to have multiple outcomes but, if you have doubts about what would rate a political campaign's efficiency, well, the outcome could be determined by number of friends, skills etcetera. Quests are gonna be customizable, they've talked about a Quests Editor so I could create my own "Political Campaign Quest" from scratch! It doesn't need to be in the basegame. Such a quest would be triggered by a sim being at lvl.9 of the Political career, and after being fulfilled the human could get an instant job promotion. If the Quests Editor works as I imagine, I can totally see quests for jobs that help getting further in your career field. Dialogue Editor will definitely have job related triggers as well, so if a sim is in a certain career field they can get specific lines of dialogue. I would love that, jobs would have a bigger impact on the relationships between the characters! If a sim is arrested for a crime, that could affect how other people treat them.