The Sims 5 In Develpment
 

Not sure if this has been reported here yet or if this is the correct forum. Now let's hope they don't screw it up. Nothing in the story on what the mechanics are yet, i.e. open world, aging, genetics, etc. But there was some interesting items that I'll quote as well as post the link.

Direct link to the stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmm6h6bHD3o
I hope they don't make the artstyle anything like Sims 4's!

The textures looked more textured. Less like painted scenery. But it is early days yet... Glad they are gonna take feedback during development!

I'm curious to see how they pull off Co-op and cross play. Those would literally be game changers.

Interesting point of view & speculation:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apixcPclpx0

Truth be told I don't care why they did it. I'm just glad it's done. I'm ready to play the game again even if it's going to take me a couple of years to get there.

I'm doubtful that they'll be able to pull off some of the mechanics. Placing pillows where you want? Surely that would clip into Sims or cause strange behavior with animations. I'm not looking forward to Sims 5, because Sims 4 has been such a letdown. I'm not convinced that'll change.

Is it possible to copywrite (or register in some way) a style of game mechanic? The resizing thing in Paralives is very cool, I would have loved for that to be in a Sims game. The movable windows too! I mean, a colour wheel or picker is something that's in all sorts of games, and resizing things is used in a lot of games too. How does one even go about defining what it is about a feature that's unique?

I'm a bit in shock ... we waited YEARS for that crappy little presentation about some buy/build mode? The TS3 and even TS4 announcements were so ambitious but this..

Also the graphics look like The Sims 4/Olympus?

It's been a long time since TS4 was released. But I get what you're saying.


My mind immediately went there as well.


It's early in development.

I don’t really know what to make of it. I am kinda annoyed that they’re still trying to push multiplayer into the Sims when it has no place there, but at least they’ll be giving us a choice I guess.

Obviously this could easily turn into a “fool me twice” situation, but for the time being, I’ll say that I’m…*very* cautiously optimistic? Sure, let’s go with that.

If anything, this does demonstrate how competition breeds innovation. Paralives has seemed to give EA enough of a spook for them to try and push this out to direct people’s attention elsewhere. Will it actually succeed? Only time will tell, I suppose.

I would like to see more about buy/build but am not going to watch all that to find probably very short segment on that, and we will be hearing more. I do like seeing there is a CASt type thing again. And I do like that multi-player is optional and not sole option. So good news in those areas.

TS4 is now "free to play" on Steam (DLCs still cost a million, of course). If everybody on this forum swears TS5 is better than TS2 and TS3 combined I might consider buying it. If not, I'll wait until it will be free as well.

I don't mind a quality multiplayer that doesn't come at the cost of singleplayer, as the Sims has always been a 'social' game, just that its social aspect has been divorced from actual gameplay (with a few tentative attempts to bridge that gap in TS1 and TS3). It should be a no-brainer to be able to be able to take a family of sims to your friends' house, or at least meet up with them at an online social hub.

The bigger issue IMO is the insistence of multiplatform, especially IOS. I see nothing good coming out of that, and mobile potentially acting as a chain around TS5's leg.

This definitely has me concerned as well. I see mobile compatibility as a hindrance to the game’s complexity/graphics. Unless the mobile version has certain features removed or other modifications (which I don’t see happening seeing as they said it’ll be the same experience regardless of the device), I don’t see it working well. I’m all for cross-progression among PC and console releases, but can they please leave mobile out of it when they already have not one, but TWO mobile-exclusive Sims games as it is?

It’s still way too early to make heads or tails of this, but build buy is looking fine. Only fine.

I would of hoped they would of started with the gameplay, and if that's a winner then start build/buy options.

I don't trust the quality of the simulation or the game itself at all, but I am curious.

I wonder how co-op will affect mods. If you have co-op gameplay on official servers, there is no way you can run gameplay mods. And your CC will not be visible by the other player if they don't have it.

And from what I experienced with EA games, I also wonder if the main goal for online gameplay is monetization (which again could be a reason to not allow mods). When sim players can visit other player's houses and see all the shiny new shop items, this is automatically great advertisement for an ingame store.

Anyway, this would be the worst scenario imo. Official servers, no mods, just ingame store. And all the free bugs to go with it (Because no mods to fix them).

They need an environment for gameplay and animations takes longer time to make, unless they just reuse of course. A professional modeller only takes a couple of hours to model a table.



They are using Unreal and it looked very unreal to me, almost like the viewport The pillow should have a collision box so clipping shouldn't happen, but sometimes clipping happens because the decorator wants the pillow to be just there.

It's looking very low poly and low texture resolution, but with all the expansions they know will come, it's going to be like that.

Oh yes and I love the changing of patterns and textures.

Well they are doing this for Sims 4:
https://thesims4.curseforge.com/
So if they implement something like that for Sims 5 then they can control content to a subscriber base.
And if simmers choose to add mods manually then they could block online features, in the same way that Steam can block achievements for modded games. Of course there are ways around all this...

Tbh, I would prefer for The Sims to maintain its grid based design, as it’s so “The Sims.” Anything else feels like a routing nightmare.

I guess TS5 will be great for kids, especially since they love playing mobile games more-so than console and desktop games.

I wonder, if this is an attempt to get in front of a possible Paralives competition. And if so, it might backfire since more people will also hear about Paralives simply because it's coming up a lot in comments about this announcement. Possibly causing more people to check out the possible competition.

You're the second person to mention Paralives. There may be some truth that, but from what I've seen from that game it doesn't look like a Sims killer. TS4 killer maybe, but I think a lot of you have forgotten how old TS4 is. A new game with new technology backed by EA money could make a game that the Paralives team likely couldn't come close to. The question is, will they or will they pull another TS4 debacle? This is all strictly my opinion by the way.

Also, limitations/guidelines help keep things mentally manageable for most people, too many choices can overwhelm the player, resulting in a tyranny of choice that can freeze the player or put them off.

The ideal limitation of course is a weak one, passable by people who are willing to look (i.e. moveobjects on).

To me, Paralives doesn't need to be a Sims killer. And while it may be too late to actually "kill" Sims4, EA is managing that people are going back to the older games. Without Paralives being out.
Paralives just needs to be good enough so I might play it in addition to Sims 2 and 3. I'm not giving EA my money ever again. So, Sims 5 is not something I'm adding to it.
If you read comments about the stream on Youtube, you find many people just either complaining that EA is stealing from Paralives' build/buy mode (I don't believe that's true but it wouldn't surprise me) or expressing their dissatisfaction with whatever EA might offer in 2-3 years.

Just because a game is backed by the money from EA won't guarantee a good game.

I did not watch the stream as never do, as too much fluff and little content, but is this being designed to play on a tomato or potato this time? If geared to low end computers again, and mobile, well that is not good news to me.

If I understood correctly, and I did FF a lot through the fluffy bits, which were about 98%, it's multi-platform so if you need to go to school, you can "design a room on your way to school on your phone", upload and then play on your computer at home when you get back.
I mean, haven't these people heard of a work/school-life balance?

Talking of PL vs EA Sims, the choice may be in the little people themselves - whether you want the typically "quirky" or "goofy" (my word is "irritating") behaviour of the clown-like sims, or whether Paras are actually going to act like humans, with a lot of serious aspects to their lives and occasional humour. Last time I asked (some months ago now) Paralives were not planning to put too much of the darker side of life into the game but appeared to be indicating that the paras would not behave in "goofy" ways to those situations they did partake of. TBH I am not sure either Sims 4 or Paralives is going to fulfil me, but I am still awaiting Rod Humble's game announcement, and TS5 might at least be more fun to design houses in.

I'm not really interested in doing multi-player, nor am I eagerly anticipating TS5' s arrival, but in thinking about it, this does intrigue me a bit: Currently, if you send a sim to visit (travel) to a residential property, the sim cannot enter the house once there (at least in my game they can't - if they can, I haven't figured that out yet). To go in, the residential sim has to come out and invite them in, but to do that, I have to go thru a loading screen to that household - and thus lose control of the sim I sent there (unless I go thru another loading screen to go back).
Hence, I assume that with the multi-player ability, I can send my sim to my friend's household, and she will be able to send her sim out to greet and invite me in. Therefore, I am also assuming that there will be a lack of loading screens due to this. The game will just run smooth like that - I control my sim and my friend controls her sim. In a way, this appears to give some element of improved gameplay, which would make TS5 somewhat better.
How far off am I?

Lots of game companies try to shoe horn in multiplayer with little regard for the requirements of the actual game. Instead of engaging with the communities for simple player games, they try to force players to engage in game together, and it doesn't always work.

I've watched Resident Evil struggle to have an engaging multiplayer experience for years. It's not going great.

I am not a multi-player game person. I did the Showtime sends and receives a few times in 3, and that is it. In the above scenario, I am having a hard time imagining it. I control my Sim and set them up to woohoo, and the other person is setting up to make a meal for both of them. So does whoever does it the nano second first get in the queue first and then the other player's things follow? And what if other person sets up something we have no interest in, we have to sit through that to wait until we race to see who can set up what is next? Or is this all that most folks are on phones the whole time deciding what they want their Sims to do?

I want my sandbox, and do not want to share with anyone. That is Sims to me. You can see I am ignorant about this, and like it that way! LOL

Only thing i don't like it we got at most 3 more years of TS4

I'm getting this weird impression that EA thinks that future gaming will be online all the time, on the phone, interacting with friends via gaming, etc. A bit like what Metaverse is trying to do? It baffles me. If the pandemic has taught us nothing I feel it has taught us how important person-to-person contact is for our mental and physical well-being. Zoom-fatigue, disengaged meetings, etc. At least for me, I treasure my in-person interactions so much more. And I am kind of an introvert.

Don't get me started on people, especially younger, who are Siamese twins with phones now. As we both have said, does EA think players will be on phone when playing? And my understanding, very little, is there are turn based games, but that is mostly combat? I cannot imagine Sims as that. I say read the cooking book. Then you say go jogging. Then I say take a shower. UM cannot see that.

As said, however done seems like a total fiasco/mismatch for Sims. ????

To be honest I didn't watch the stream. It's too early in development for anything in the video to really mean anything about the final product. As far as EA goes, no their money doesn't necessarily mean a good game. My point is that money provides resources to make a good game, which is why I said will they, or will they make another TS4 debacle? If they make a good game, I'll buy it. if they don't I won't. I don't have an aversion to games by EA, just because it's EA.

It's not that black and white - no, Paralives isn't going to kill The Sims, but clearly a developer with a similar game can put pressure on EA, because it can sure steal plenty of profits. I have never seen EA act this way so I don't find it far-fetched to believe that Paralives have made them rush the announcement and gone a slightly similar route

I didn't catch most of the stream while watching since all I could hear in my head was, "Hello darkness my old friend~"

I'm done. I won't touch the Sims 5 ever. I'm off to Paralives.

Methinks that if the sims 5 does take off, EA will still be looking pretty in the profits because Paralives will only be like TS4 and not mobile.

This. I was shocked to find out TS5 wasn't further into development.

I feel like they can kill it. I have faith in passion projects than studios driven by greed. TS5 or Project Rene (whatever you gonna call or spin it) will be another controversial game with lacklustee gameplay, because I think the goal behind it was to win over simmers as a rival for paralives and continue on their monetizing scheme spree, nickeling players but not genuinely caring on their gameplay experience.

The worst aspect is not if they make a decent or even good game to start with. They usually do. Even TS4 had its highlights when first released, first playing. I really liked the new multitasking introduced to the game. However, the game just got very dry after a short while playing. The nature of this game, like no other, is the monthly patching that goes on for years and years. And in the wrong hands that can take a masterpiece of a game at release and turn it into a scrap heap before the end. The wrong hands. Such as latter day Maxis' hands. I don't trust them for the long term, no matter what the quality of game is during initial release. There's something about modern Maxis that's just wrong, not competent enough. And I don't blame their bosses EA for all of that.

If history repeats, and Maxis put out their Project Renee as Sims 5 in three years, when Paralives will probably also be released, then Paradox with Rod Humble also put out their people simulator, we could see another SimCity fiasco on our hands. And for all the popular presence Maxis (Team Sims) has generated over the life of Sims 3 and Sims 4 (Old Maxis were all but extinct by the end of Sims 2.) EA will blow out their lights forevermore and they will be gone like their brothers and sister of Maxis (Team SimCity.)

And if it's latter day Maxis we're talking about, and they haven't bucked up their ideas in three years from now when, finally, the competition is really on for the first time ever, from multiple sources, then good riddance to
bad rubbish. Even if you don't see Paralives as the real contender, Paradox take no shame in saying they took all the ideas from Maxis regarding Sim City and just did it better with City Skylines, which ultimately drove the last and worst nail into the Sim City coffin and one half of Maxis gone forevermore. What's to say, with the help of Rod Humble, they don't do it again with the Sims and finish off Maxis once and for all?

I doubt that EA is shaking in its boots about Paralives which who knows if/when will ever release? About half of us here have posted we will not play Paralives as is or do not like how the Para are being done, so far.

Sims has a gigantic fan base that will want to try Sims 5 no matter what. Some as looks good, some as curious, some as completists, some for whatever reasons. As said if starts out at all well that is no guarantee it will age well though.

Yeah, my best experiences with multiplayer modes in games have all been in the grand strategy genre, because playing a strategy game against another human is a distinct step up from playing against an AI. I am ... dubious ... about how much I would use multiplayer in a sims game. I suspect the answer is either "not at all" or "as little as they will let me."

Half of us HERE, but consider how many simmers in other social media posted they be moving to Paralives? MILLIONS. And if it succeeds meeting expectation, then it be bye bye to actual quality life simulator. I feel like they are shaking and a bit worrying, because really they really only showed building aspect that paralives have covered up and not really glimpse of live mode. It feels rushed and only intent to convince players that jumped on paralives hype that "hey, TS5 will be able to do that and so pls join us111". Lindsay wouldn't be so stressing much that this is still in early development and not final product, which may allude the future hat it be much like TS4 first release fiasco where magority are not happy and wtf so many things missing and superficial etc.

I don't believe that Paralives will be as great against TS5 as everyone may predict - unless - and only - if TS5 turns out to be a dud. For all we know at this point, TS5 could be a speedster in the making when it comes to multiplayer games. It's still too early to tell.

You never know, Sims 5 might be like SimCity (2013); when the game was so bad that Cities Skylines swooped in and took the player base.

Sims/EA has a huge base still. And showing what they did and stating is early in development is being somewhat transparent. IMO saying is early in development does not indicate they fear Paralives is a big threat to them.

All we all can do is just wait to see when these games are released and then see how well we do or do not like them and whether to buy and play them?

Sales figures for both will show what people really think/want. Comments on media indicate some things, but only tell a fraction of the story. Sales is the true indicator of success in most ways. These are both being made to sell, and sales will reflect how well they have accomplished that.

Also, there are many players who will purchase both. Getting one does not mean that person will not try the other also.

For many seasoned players, it could well be Paralives has somewhat of an advantage in the interest stakes. Despite getting clips of its development here and there, it is largely an unknown entity, mostly guessing of its workings due to the nature of its genre via the Sims franchise. Whereas the Sims franchise, the same folks who worked on Sims 4 are working on Sims 5. Despite being a 20 year franchise, Maxis being a 20 year entity - revived from near extinction at end of TS2 as new media gurus for TS3 marketing - the vast majority of latter day Maxis have only been working on it since Sims 4 because of the hiring strategy made specifically for TS4 - and it damn well shows. Meaning no real guessing what TS5 will be like over time. Botched, incessant patches, everything broken to some lesser or greater degree by about half way through its lifespan and riddled with so many annoyances - like every new sim still gets a Japanese name due to a pack released two frikken years ago - it would be impossible to tidy them all so they don't tidy any. Sims 5 will be rinse and repeat.

I know Maxis.
I don't know Paralives.
(Absolutely no idea what Paradox and Rod Humble are planning. Too quiet for too long on that one. But hey, we live in hope.)
Who has the advantage in my book?

The graphics from the Sims 5 looks just like the graphics from sims 4. I hope this will not be the case when it launches. The aesthetics is what truly keeps me from enjoying Sims 4. Too Cartoonish.

I wonder what game will be available first, because if it happens that Paralives launches first, it will be in a huge advantage regarding the protection of its ideas. That is why I do not like how the Paralives team always has secrets regarding the development of their game, but I also understand that at the same time because EA and Maxis can, for example, evolve Paralives' ideas and make them better.

We can only guess why EA has announced TS5 so early, but the competition with Paralives is, in my opinion, the best guess. What are the other answers to this question? It could be that EA wants TS5 to be as popular as it can get, but then again TS is already a popular franchise. It has millions of fans that, for the most part, eagerly wait the next installment.

It is more than obvious that Paralives and TS5 will now be in this weird race/competition about who got the idea first and whose ideas are better. Maxis has told us that more updates about TS5 are coming soon. It feels like Maxis is copying Paralives' approach or maybe Maxis wants to be first to claim developed ideas.

EA shouldn’t have to consider Paralives as actual competition because they have the pull and manpower to be in a different league. The have longevity and an actual fan base to back themselves up.

With all of these resources that they still waste while failing to deliver rock solid projects (likely due to ONE majorly botched project, TS4’s base game), the fact that they are seeing an independent title as a competitor is enough for me to not want to buy TS5. It never should have come to this and they have the means to supersede anything Paralives has done.

They got too comfortable in their nonsense as a team. Now is not the time to “give it all you’ve got” and “prove yourself to be the best” - the time for that was when Sim City 5 flopped, and they’re still trying to make TS5 a multiplayer experience (even though the Sims has always had a strong community and fan base).

I will agree with almost all you say but I do think for EA it is a time to up their game and make a better game than 4. I completely agree that they are in a different league than Paralives, so there is really no excuse not to do it. As said, I do not think they are particularly worried, BUT having having some legitimate competition finally is good.

I think many of us think that 1 then 2 then 3 of Sims were advancements. But while some things in 4 are done well, many of us, including me, think it was step backwards. EA should not depend on past laurels. They need to step up to the plate as this is a very different world from even 10 years ago.

And I also am curious to see which game releases first and how well received? And actually not being the first has some advantages as the latter can see the feedback/results/sales and may be able to make some changes to it's product based on that.

Getting popcorn to watch this all over the next few years.

EAxis should have upped their game years ago. I only have but so much hope for The Sims 5 since 4 is still having trouble.

It’s not even a case of the older games being amazing. They’re still having trouble delivery an engaging, complete experience - My Wedding Stories dropped this year. Dream Home Decoratir struggled. High School years soon became problematic.

I’d gladly go back to the 2 EP a year cycle, 2 stuff pack cycle. 1 EP, 1 GP, 1 SP… whatever their barometer is for consistency, but I can see that quickly souring.

They know their business models and okay it well. I’ve said it before - if the results between 100% and 90% aren’t significant, and the returns are the same if they pull 70% vs 90%, why even give 90%? They’ll operate at 70%.

Totally true, and that is how most/many businesses operate nowadays.

It looks that way because of a weak application of shaders representing anything like shine, bumpmaps, or gloss, in addition to a totally even lighting (no real indoor shadows).

Hence nearly everything aside from the floor has a flat matte texture, combined with an aggressive application of fake ambient occlusion like in TS4.

Hopefully this is just WIP graphics (though it may be troubling if it's the art direction they're going for), let's hope that they can at least use Unreal Engine's capabilities and not just repeat TS4's aesthetics.

Does anyone still have that really early TS3 concept rendering that depicted TS2 furniture rendered with good lighting?

As I said in a previous post. It's way too early in development for the video to mean anything about a finished product in my opinion.

Totally agree. If EA/Maxis hasn't learned anything by now, it is fully obvious they never will.

I just hope it's open-world. Any other flaws can pretty much be worked around apart from that one.

Irony being, here we are talking about TS5 on a longstanding, much-loved mods/CC website, who, quite possibly, may not be allowed to host mods for TS5. Looks like EA may be attempting to take control of that avenue. I mean taking control of that to gain extra revenue is the ultimate in nickle & diming the player base, or as we say in the UK "penny pinching," but isn't that what EA do? No need for introducing loot boxes into the Sims franchise, not when you can make it so modders and CC creators have to pay licence to EA to use a tool made by Maxis to make stuff for the game. And that stuff will only be allowed on one website, the one they're now doing a test run for all this by making a new home for TS4 mods.

Websites like MTS may not be allowed for Sims 5 mods. Might be breaking the "new" (yet to come) law to host mods. (Might see a revival in rebel sites like More Awesome Than You... for a while.)

And no such thing as free mods or CC any more. Because if creators have to pay for a licence to use the EA/Maxis Mod Tools, then they're going to want recompense for that. Perhaps in some new EA End User bylaw that they cannot give mods/CC for free, as that destabilizes the revenue structure for all, and creators who want to play a fast and loose Robin Hood with the rules will lose their EA IP TS5 Mod Tool Licence.

Unsanctioned modders making unsanctioned mods on unsanctioned mod tools and hosting on unsanctioned websites will be a new form of piracy. EA TS5 taking full control.

I feel like they flew too close to the sun with TS3’s open world and CAST. It’s 100% doable today, but they probably had PTSD with the open world aspect.

I think a good alternative is having an open world, but not having the entire world be active at once. This leads to empty lots. Perhaps simulate a single lot at a time, and give the illusion that the word is active from the perspective of a single lot
- like TS2, but better looking.

If that player has a population of 100 sims in town and 60 of those sims are non-elder adults, half would spread out across multiple nightclubs/bars/etc. It doesn’t work visually.

"If a tree falls in a forest when nobodys around, does it make noise?"
^ ^ This is the crucial aspect. The game should not bother rendering a sim taking a poo, if its 3 blocks away. Only when the camera is focused on that activity.
If EA can grasp this concept, it will work. 95% of developers nowadays could make this work. Its only EA I worry about.

If latest Quantum Physics is correct, the tree (and forest) doesn't exist at all until someone thinks of them. Kind of like computer generated LOD distance and such the like. Even bold enough to say, if for one moment of the day, absolutely nobody was thinking of our familiar Moon, it would simply vanish into non existence until the next person thinks of it.

So that means EA doesn't really exist at all until someone thinks of them. How 'bout we all stop thinking of them. See if latest Quantum Physics is correct...

I support this experiment 100%!

So far everything shown is like:
- Sims 4.5 as far as the graphics look (it's slightly more textured than 4 but nothing too impressive and the color wheel pretty much guarantees that it won't be very textured either since that would just end up looking muddy)
- If Sims skin/eyes/hair etc can be edited with the color wheel too there won't be any kind of working genetics, we're back to Sims 3 and its "dad dyed his blonde hair blue after mom got pregnant so the baby was born blue haired too" *facepalm*
- it's likely online
- it has at least multiplayer option if it's not downright always-online-multiplayer
- additionally they also want their own (likely at least partially paid) mod-source where people can only download carefully curated CC EA has accepted (this will likely be reversed by the modding community but seems like their goal anyway)

That's pretty much list of everything I did not want with none of the things I did want so my interest is already gone and the game is at least 2 years away from release. They might still lure me back if the Sims themselves look awesome and don't have stupid clay hair but I doubt that so I'm keeping my expectations on Sims 5 or "Rene" extremely low. But maybe it'll at least have cool things to convert back in Sims 2 once it's released... :/

Talking of new games, Will Wright appears to be recreating Minecraft!?

Not that I have high hopes for the game or anything, but commenting on the graphics at this stage is probably pointless.

I think it could've been done well, even then. It's just poorly optimized, the whole game is. People took that to mean that the open world *caused* the performance issues and used it to rationalize not having it in TS4. Like you said, though, there's even less reason not to do it now. Fingers crossed The open, customizable world is half the reason I enjoy ts3 so much, seeing sims I've created walk around the town square interacting with each other...it's like my own little fish bowl.

We all said that about TS4 when we saw the oversized mailboxes and how out of proportion to the sims all the objects were. We said surely the graphics will be improved before launch.

TS4’s visuals did improve since the leak and have slowly improved since release, but its still a low fidelity game that is showing it’s age due to the quality of the resources used and how the game optimized them.

Rene’s visual aren’t bad, just a higher fidelity version of TS4. I truly yearn for a visual style that is like TS3, but higher fidelity - between stylized and realistic.

Well if they want TS5 to work on connected multiple, multiplayer platforms, as in mobile phone players sitting on a bus on the way home from work, playing with PC players in some internet cafe (with low-to-mid range rigs nothing to write home about) while also playing console players (typical locked-in tech with no chance of upgrading) then you can count out the likes of Ray Tracing implementation or the likes of NVidea being put to task updating graphics cards to sustain TS5. If mobile phones are the lowest denominator they're going for, for that "across the board" play, then yeah, no big advancements from TS4 graphical capabilities. Certainly don't get your hopes up.

Then again, remember how we used to bitch and whine about the latest release of Half Life needing to be run on computers made by wizard aliens from another dimension. And that crappy Dell Home Laptap you had would totally melt into a puddle of bubbling, liquid plastic and dripping sand just for imagining it trying to run Half Life. Gone are those days at Maxis HQ. Then again, gone is Half Life. Half Life had even less than a half life! That's frikken irony. Bahhh! Valve. Bahh!! Steam. Meanwhile TS4 goes on for over a decade running on potato tech, and still going strong now it's for free. Lessons to be learned.

Honestly, if a game is just "good," advanced graphics don't really count for much. Playing older games like Fable, Halo, Mass Effect, the remastered releases, didn't make all the difference. (I can't wait to see what the new remake of Dead Space will entail.) They just were and are great games. That's all Maxis need to concentrate on. So let's hope they do. Though, once again, my trust in latter day Maxis making a great "new" sims game is practically zero, no matter what the graphics look like. They've just lost the "old Maxis" touch for making a "charming" game.

"Dear Lord, there's a fire burning down half the village, what shall we do?! Here's a bucket full of Red Tape we took nine months to decide upon, and a hot fix patch for the patch of the hot fix patch from three months ago, see if that helps. Nope. Took too long. Village is now a total dumpster fire."

Wasn't online connection and speedy online patching supposed to make it easier? Make it better? Fuck me, TS1, TS2 and TS3 were far better without online monthly patching. That fucking backfired wouldn't you say? Trust Maxis to do better for Sims 5? Not if I had a whole lifetime to live again as a young person, would I trust them. I'm an old fart, and that trust has gone where Maxis are concerned. They're simply abysmal. With volunteers, players just like you and me who love the game, taking up the bulk of the workload on their main Maxis and EA Help websites. Why are volunteers the ones doing most of the questions? FFS! Where are the paid EA "professional" fuckers to sort the mess? Of course, Red-Fucking-Tape before the paid EA staff feel the need to stoop so low as to engage with the plebeian player with issues. MOUNTAIN OF UNRESOLVED ERRORS. But thanks to the tireless volunteers for at least trying to help where the "paid professionals" CONTINUOUSLY FAIL TO CONNECT TO PLAYER BASE. Or am I just an old bugger reading it all wrong? (Boy, do I fucking hate EA Help. - Except for the kind-hearted volunteers. They have my respect. But Maxis/EA, nope. Can't have what you don't earn.)

"Charming." If no game has it, it just ain't worth it. All the games that have ever worked for you, "Charming" will be the key. From Zelda Ocarina of Time to Last of Us, the wining factor was and is its Charming nature, and unforgettable as such. Even if it's the scariest Resident Evil to ever come down the Pike. Still gotta be damn Charming to become that next, joint "favorite" spot in our hearts. Early sims franchise was one of the first game experiences for me to be so joyfully, unshakably and unapologetically Charming. The very epitome of Charming compared to all games before or since. And I expect it with every iteration. Whereas Zelda can go wayward, Mass Effect Andromeda went off to the galaxy and dimension of Shit and Last of Us 2 can suck the big one. (Don't even get me started on utterly Charmless Cyberpunk compared to fully Charming Witcher 3.) I want the Sims, my beautiful Sims, to remain true. Because it's such a great premise, how could you possibly fuck that up? Though modern Maxis just don't got it. Botched patches and Red Tape is what they got, by the bucket full, over and over. Not good for game making in general. And certainly no room, no mindset, to make for (Important; nay Vital) things like Charming.

Nearly every game I play has better graphics than TS4. They seem to be happy with realistic without everyone crying "uncanny valley" at the idea. Nor have I heard any other player complaining they won't run on their potato. Don't know if there are special forums for potato owners to keep me from reading about it or what?

The Sims franchise is unique for a number of factors. One of the main factors is, for over twenty years, it has this almost magically compelling attraction to reach out to those folks who have some basic form of a "Computer," - the cheapest Laptop they could buy in the sales just to have internet availability at home - to think that they could possibly run a "game" on it. People who would otherwise refrain from playing any kind of computer games at all because it's just not their usual thing. All shooting and bloody and nasty, it's just not for them. Hitherto no appeal. But for some uncanny reason, the Sims, having babies and families, raising babies and families, has something of an appeal to them. And not a War in sight...

Modern Maxis make the game to run on a potato specifically for these types. They know their target audience.

Old Maxis didn't cater so much to this. New Maxis do.

Times do change.

Three guesses who that target audience is. Bet you get it in one.

Keep in mind, no-one in their right mind has ever played an iteration of the Sims thinking this is gonna put my graphics card to the test! Yeah, I did that for Cyberpunk. Not so much for the Sims. Nor should anyone have to, Sims 5 and beyond. Though personally I did get pissed off with Sims 3 and the Error Code 12 out of memory bullshit. Because even if playing on a rig made by wizard aliens from another dimension, I got so, so, so fed up of the game's own in-built limitations running out of memory and always hitting that fucking Error Code 12 I had to give up. Sims 4 has never done that to me. Not once with any kind of the Error Code 12 bollocks. In that regard, Sims 4 is better. Far, far better. Sure, the Simulation Lag can test the nerves, but not a damn Error Code 12 to end the game and kill the whole save forevermore. Not once. And I'm forever pushing the game to its limits with freaky builds and crazy mods in testing, I have to say it's the most resilient version of the game so far. (It has to be, to survive Maxis messing around with it too ) That's what I enjoy doing with TS4. Make of that what you will. TS4 has not chopped off my creative nuts like TS3 did. Other than its Simulation Lag. (But hey, I made a mod for that too, so what the hell it.) Gotta give it some praise for that. I would personally love to get back into Sims 3, but the minute I dare imagine reinstalling it, my mind screams Error Code 12, No!!! Then I just stick with Sims 4. I got my gripes with it, but I don't got no Error Code 12s with it.

If Sims 5 comes with Error Code 12s, we must rally together as a unified force to purge it from existence and thwart it before it ever has the capacity to crush the the hopes and dreams of creators. This must never be allowed to happen again.

Sims 3 is my fave and always will be, but 2 had far more charm to it. I wish they had been able to carry that over to 3 with the new things such as open world. and CASt, and so on. I like the Sims in 3, but they were more graceful in 2 and we had the better animations there. I wish we could have had both the charm still and the new.

edit: I did most of my computer upgrades to play newer versions of Sims. I get good rigs, but not top for sure as do not need and do not want to spend. I am one of few that had a few error 12s way back when and have never had since. My 12 year old i7 plays 3 beautifully with all installed other than K Perry which I did not buy. Maybe I am just lucky, but my 3 still plays well.

I agree 100%

Don't forget some form of Story Progression as well, preferably one that works. Just like open-world, the critiques I see always revolve around the implementation and not the actual concept.

It amazes how many still trust EA and expect a great TS5. TS4 has only been successful by force, this is today and this is what you get, already even if their is a single play option, just the multi-play option is just turning me off it...

It literally says in my original post players will be able to play solo. So why would a feature you don't have to use turn you off of it?

From experience, once publishers force developers to shoe-horn in multiplayer, everyone suffers. They focus so much of their attention on the MP that any kind of solo experience is neglected and left to rot. In the meantime, the MP that gets attention ends up being riddled with problems they can't fix because they're trying to add it to a game that was never really built for it in the first place. It's just a mess.

Now this isn't always true: there's exceptions to the rule. Mass Effect built its multiplayer very carefully and to tremendous force - they treat it separately from the main game and it worked. But for example, look at SimCity, Dead Island, Fallout 76, Dead Space 2, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Heck, RDR2's MP doesn't even get updates anymore. Now, you could level that at least some of the single player modes in these games still stand up. True. But here's the thing, The Sims always releases expansions and 'kits' and what-not. Having that contend with multiplayer support?

Might as well take a dump in the cake mix right now.

It's a red flag. This is how Sims 4 started too.

Leading up to Sims 4's release, we didn't get much preview of actual gameplay in a way that wasn't heavily scripted and controlled. Instead they focused heavily on new Build Mode tools.

As I recall, Sims 2's previews were mostly showing off things like how clocks now accurately tracked time, chess games showed actual piece movements, and the various life stages and aspirations. It was a good mix of everything.

Sims 3? The open world took centerstage for all previews.

Sims 4? Build mode, probably because the actual gameplay was garbage.

Sims 5? Whelp, here we are again. It just begs the question what gameplay looks like, or if they've even begun with it.

Hmm:


https://gamerant.com/sims-5-pirated/

Oh geez, multiplayer build-buy?

See, I quite like the sound of that. There have been lots of times when I've been building Sims 3 worlds with other players, or working with someone on a Sims 2 neighbourhood where I would have found this very useful. I can imagine more uses for multiplayer build/ create rather than multiplayer live mode, anyway!

Why do I get the feeling EA is trying to emulate the success of Minecraft? Never mind Paralives, Minecraft is the ultimate social simulation game right now. If making TS5 a cross-platform online/multiplayer experience isn't emulating Minecraft's business model, then I don't know what is. Seeing how Mojang continues to grow and maintain a steady player base without a single sequel is incredible. It's a good model for the live service game EA desperately wants to turn the Sims franchise into. I wouldn't be surprised if EA decided to bring back the Sims Store or combine it with their new modding platform. Imagine the Sims Marketplace. The only place to buy bundles of player-created content for 1500 sim points.

I don’t think anything they showed looked bad, I actually think the real time collaboration thing is a little neat. It’s up in the air if that type of together play extends outside of build/buy, but if it does it looks like it will be invite only where one player is required to be the host and it’s not a truly shared space. That’s a plus imo.

I think it’s too early to base a solid opinion on the game as a whole. They showed off the connectivity features, not even really build mode. They look pretty developed. In terms of art style the game didn’t appear to have a finalized look, but it absolutely has a larger visual budget than Sims 4. The throw blanket on the couch had more polygons than any object in Sims 4.

I’m sure there will be more updates early next year, I mean they’re play testing already. For it being super early in development there seemed to be quite a bit already there. Time will tell, but I kind of think that was a front to avoid turning people away from Sims 4.

Oh good. Now I can fight over wallpaper swatches with randomers online and not just with my partner in real life. What a great idea.

Like yeah, jt doesn't even excite or color me curious. What hooks me to play The Sims is micro managing and simulating aspect. I'm probably inn the minor in this, but what the hell is being able to change cushioks on a couch in renamed TS5 (kudos for them not titling as such) for the first time in the "series" do for me?

On other hand, I really strong believe from start that's why ghey took a different nane. There might not be any or identical simulation/LIVE mode in this new installment. The Sims, I might know, is probably over and death. PROJECT RENE is now here. Why is nobody concerned or addressing this???

Like yeah, jt doesn't even excite or color me curious. What hooks me to play The Sims is micro managing and simulating aspect. I'm probably inn the minor in this, but what the hell is being able to change cushioks on a couch in renamed TS5 (kudos for them not titling as such) for the first time in the "series" do for me?

On other hand, I really strong believe from start that's why ghey took a different nane. There might not be any or identical simulation/LIVE mode in this new installment. The Sims, I might know, is probably over and death. PROJECT RENE is now here. Why is nobody concerned or addressing this???

I think they are more shaking in their boots because of Paradox. Like someone said earlier they completely killed SimCity. They would be better off just taking Sims 2 and giving it a graphics overhaul if Paradox really is working on a life simulator.

I am looking forward to Paralives however. I think the simplicity of it will be refreshing and I could see it being like Minecraft and evolving for decades with updates; non gamebreaking ones too lol. I'm still pissed that the last TS4 update killed off all of the grandparents in my multigen save

In a somewhat predictable manner the first round of leaks has hit the internet. EA’s early access play test has at least one user breaking NDA to share clips of a set piece most likely not even intended for the final game, as well as some unfinished placeholder character files..

https://twitter.com/thesims5_world/...G4RAy_QvEDv-4SQ

https://twitter.com/thesims5_world/...G4RAy_QvEDv-4SQ

Not much to gather from the leaks but it is notable that it appears the new game will follow Sims 4 using 3D modeled environments with baked in pieces. Kind of kills the idea of a world creator but since these are just excerpts unused in this test it’s hard to say for sure.

Is there any news since that rather vague interview from 2020 that actually confirms they are working on something?

I like the Paris theme, but ATM it all looks so fake.

Oh, it's just like Sims 4- full of empty, unplayable building models. I'm not much interested if it's going to be like that- why would I, when I can build a whole world of liveable, playable lots in Sims 3 or Sims 2?

There was Rod Humble's interview earlier this year, which suggested strongly that yeah, they were working on a life simulator. Also there was an interesting Paradox hiring description within the last year or so for "a new IP" looking for "a deep understanding of a diverse and predominantly female PC gamer audience."

Attempting to figure out what is going on is not made easier by Paradox keeping a "loose lips sink ships" policy about announcing games early, after getting burned badly a couple of times.

Do you have a link for this? I can only find one from 2020 and one from 2017.

They already know what we want, they are not that stupid. If they do another scam like with sims 4, I'll assume this game is already dead.

Can I just point out, as a female, that I HATE descriptions like this? You don't see ones listing for a 'deep understanding of a diverse and predominantly male PC gamer audience' so why the heck list females specifically?

I want equality dammit. Animal Crossing isn't just for girls, GTA isn't just for boys, and you shouldn't have to hire people who have apparent 'knowledge' of one gender specific over the other when it comes to gaming. Just fudging game, who cares.

... #micdrop

Before Rod Humble left twitter (when musk first announced he was buying so whenever that was) he told simmers we should hear something "soon" and to back that up in Paradox's Q2 report their "ambition" was to provide more info on new titles later in 2022. It seems like the announcement has been pushed back considering there's not much time left in the year but the Tectonic Studio has recent job openings for a 3D Tech Artist and a Technical Animator and they've recently renewed their trademark in CA so it seems likely the game is still being developed.

In fact I enjoy things more when they have a balance between masculine and feminine. Speaking abstractly.

Me too! Makes my skin crawl. I think they forget how many women and girls are gamers.