There seems to be a lot of confusion about the game from new players coming in to play the original game these days, caused by the so-called "Complete" edition of the game.

I just wanted to clarify the design and structure of The Sims, as it was first released and intended.

The original Sims game is actually comprised of the base game, 3 expansion packs, and 4 conversion packs (which they confusingly also marketed as expansion packs). By that I mean that 3 expansion packs expand on the original gameplay of the game, and 4 overhaul/vary the original gameplay significantly. They were designed to spice up the game for players who wanted to change it.

I'll attempt to explain them in detail, the logic by which they were presented to us when they came out originally, each separately:

Expansion packs:

House Party introduces more neighbourhood interactions and more friendly social interactions to the game -- the ability to develop closer relationships with neighbours, to call them and chat with them on the phone, to host parties, and to engage in various fun social activities together.

Hot Date introduces more romantic social interactions to the game, the ability to go out on a date, and a Downtown area you can visit to hang out in and buy clothes and gifts.

Vacation introduces more parent-child social interactions to the game, and the ability to go on a holiday with your family (for adult and child sims to go out on a trip together).

Conversion packs:

Livin' Large converts the game into a weird and whacky comedy/parody, essentially. It adds strange events and themes like UFOs, clowns, zombies, mad scientists, gnomes, etc. to the game. It also adds fantasy, horror, and science fiction elements to the game.

Unleashed converts the game into a pet-focused game, where you need to take care of your pets the same way you take care of your kids in the game. It adds all sorts of events for pet raising and training, and turns your neighbourhood into an area suitable for such pet-focused activities. By changing and expanding the neighbourhood for pet-related activities, it also introduces the possibility to plant crops and farm in the game. (It's a sort-of Harvest Moon conversion for The Sims.)

Superstar converts the game into a fame and glamour focused game, adding a whole new downtown location to the game, called Studio Town, where you can live the star life -- become a famous model, actor, or musician. It converts the home environment to feature aspects of this stardom lifestyle as well.

Makin' Magic converts the game into a magical sitcom, introducing a whole new magic realm, and allowing your sims to practice all sorts of magic (Harry Potter, Bewitched, Charmed, Practical Magic, or The Witches of Eastwick style). It also introduces more fantasy creatures to the game, like dragons and vampires.

As you can probably tell from these descriptions, mashing the whole thing together into one big clump was never the intended design of the game. The idea was that players could customise their game by mixing and matching these expansion and/or conversion packs to create their own unique blend of gameplay they wanted to play. You had to install the expansion/conversion packs in the order they were released in, but you could skip any you did not want to have installed on this gameplay occasion.

So the original Sims game was only whacky if you actually wanted it to be whacky. And it wasn't so filled with random events as it appears the case from playing the "Complete" edition. It always had some surprise events, but they were tied to the type of gameplay you were playing, to the themes of the conversion/expansion pack(s) installed. So it wasn't so crazy. It became crazy when all these packs were thrown together to make one thick, colourful soup.

I think it is very important to understand this about the game these days -- because I feel its original design is getting lost as the decades roll on. There seems to be this idea floating around these days that The Sims was always weird and whacky. I'm here to say this wasn't always so. It was always a light parody of real life, a slightly stereotyped and comical, simulated reality, but its original gameplay (and the actual expansion packs) mirrored the real world, and kept the game firmly grounded in its own virtual reality.

The conversion packs changed that reality, if the player wanted to change it. (All of this was entirely optional.)

Hope this helps to better understand the original game, and its design.

"And what did the base game do?", I hear many people asking. The base game was an architectural/home design game that featured a real-life-like gameplay mechanic about the strategic challenges of managing your needs/life and running a household, about people/families living in a household.

It was very barebones and down to earth, with some light comedy thrown in to lighten up the mood, and occasional, lifelike surprise events to make it challenging/interesting.

Essentially, it was a virtual dollhouse and a sitcom that mirrored aspects of real life. A detailed, realistic dollhouse you could design yourself, and then enjoy playing a sitcom (situation comedy) in, watching and managing the life of a family in it.

The better you designed the environment around them, the better a routine you introduced into the sims' life, the less you needed to manage things yourself, and the more self-sufficient your sims could be. And then you could afford to grow your home and family.

That is the core gameplay of The Sims.

Hi, @Kenoi!!! These are actually the things that keep me up at night thinking!! Mainly... what were the developers of the game thinking while working on it?

I agree with most of your points, but I have a different point of view. Which actually goes well with yours!! I believe Will Wright left the sims very early to work on TS2, which is more of a follow up of the original concept, a life simulator/videogame hybrid -now with psicology!!! He probably was involved in SimVille and, as a result, in Hot Date, which recucled some concepts from it. But the people behind EP had a different approach than Wright.

I would divide them chronologically:
The first Expansion Packs develop the concept of relationships, passage of time, and the continuum relationships/work/money/objects; so it makes sense it center on not leaving the home lot. Livin' Large  adds randomness and probability to the game, in order to make its lifecycle larger and explore new concepts. There's lots of pricey objects and new careers, both more difficult and easier than the base game ones. Plus the "change your job at level 10" thing, and new social interactions. The decoration themes of it expand on the narrative and sandbox-y areas of the base game, which were not really pronunced, but where there according to Wright himself: medieval, sci-fi and the strange Roman/Vegas kistch theme. "Rich people trash", as I read somewhere.

House Party is more centered on social relationships and, again, on sandbox elements and new situations. You can simulate any kind of social events: fundraisers, weddings, kids sleepovers... and of course, you've got more "rich people trash". I would say this is the first expansion pack that establishes the formula for the whole series: take a theme and let's see what we come up with it. And it's a good one, although parties are too hard to manage if you want to attain a perfect score and get Drew Carey to show up. As you've said, it tries to give more of a sense of community to your little simmie neighbourhood.

Then we have expansion packs that introduce more complex environments, actions and events, and center on expanding the relationship system ─and make your sims more psychologically complex. So, it's refining the details on the original Sims concept:

Hot Date took the concept of community centers from SimsVille and applied to the already solid foundation of The Sims. Making the passage of time in Downtown not be reflected on your lot is an intelligent decision (so to give the player more freedom) and although it loses some of the sandbox element ─in exchange for more storytelling inside the game itself. You still have a lot of freedom, though, and can make your own stories: the date system is really bare bones, and you can do wathever you want on Downtown. You have lots of social interactions and more intelligence in your simmies: two relationship bars and new levels, making them infinitely more complex, and lots of new social interactions, plus an attraction system reportedly based on zodiac sings and interests.

On Vacation insted focuses on family relationships and children, which are the great left behinds of The Sims. Not only do children get lots of interactions and a "tantrum" new state, they also have specific actions to do in Vacation Island, and lots of group activities to do with their family. Interestingly, you can control your families in a more enclosed environment, since you cand send them all on vacation and give them all the time in the world to build relationships. A pity they didn't expand more on this and children, though.

Finally, Unleashed is on an uncomfortable and strange middle-of-the-road situation, not really expanding much on the sims themselves, but giving them more to do and new things to do home. As you've said, you can try farming and having pets, which all combines really well actually. Interestingly, the developers opted for expanding the nhood and creating a more complex narrative on it, and giving more of a sense of community with... community lots in it. Cats and dogs are actually kind of a drag and don't contribute much to the family or sims relationships, but well, the expansion is really big.

Then we've got the last expansion packs, which really got off the rails, as you've said, and forgot any pretense of life simulating or psychology in order to give a more entertaining experience.

Superstar is a really interesting and fun expansion pack that adds an interactive (and really difficult!) profession to the game, and very satyrical elements. But let's face it: this is the Maxis team just adding any fun ideas they want to the game, and doesn't really tell anything new of the sims or gives them new relationship options (apart from the restictions famous sims have).

And Making' Magic just throws the original concept out of the window. If you watch it closely, charms and spells have a process, yes, but it's not specially difficult and they offer quick solutions to all the problems and troubles sims face on their lives: having relationships, cleaning, gardening, working... the magic system is still based on the original skills, but that won't stop the fun, and you can have magic sims without any skill at all. Magic Town residents are implied to come from another realm with fantasy and magical creatures ─you can even have some on your home lot, with dragons! And you can simply forget about the Sims experience, as you've said, and have fun with the game. Even children can join in the fun.

My opinion? The Sims is the only iteration in which every expansion pack is very solid and worth owning, even if they're very disparate in content. Although realism got away after a while, Superstar and Makin' Magic are the most... packed packs. But I believe that, even if all EP have LOADS of content, they gave a mostly bare bones experience in each one because of the philosophy of Will Wright, who became fascinated with all the Custom Content players made for the game. I would have liked a little more complex relationships (specially between family members), and psychology, but maybe the game was made intentionally obtuse in order to make players fill in the gaps with their creativity, I don't know. :D

We do have evidence in the interviews that Will was interested in two things for the project going fowards:

1. Multiplayer possibilities (which ties in with The Sims Online), including creative community possibilities (which became the downloadable items and the creative tools for The Sims)
2. Merging SimCity and The Sims for players (which became the SimsVille project, and eventually became the town concept in Hot Date and the integrations concept in SimCity 4)

But considering that Will was overseeing the development of Hot Date, and that Hot Date conceptually came from SimsVille, I don't think that the team had a different approach/vision to what Will had envisioned for The Sims. In fact, while far from a flawless execution, Hot Date takes the game the furthest in terms of expanding its core gameplay. Hot Date is The Sims 2.0, essentially. Every other expansion and conversion pack after that took its inspiration from Hot Date (that's why we have a Vacation Island, an Old Town, a Studio Town, and a Magic Town).



There is certainly the community development aspect to The Sims. It was a core component of it from day one. And a lot of content (like the roofs, for example), was made very simple for players, for the community, to create new items for, so Will's team did not spend a lot of time creating this content. But I think the reason the core gameplay was so barebones and simple has to do with the limitations of time and budget restraints at the time. The Sims already does incredible things considering nothing like it had existed before. So what we see as limitations today were in fact a huge progress forwards back in the day.

You can ask the team just how much time was spent developing The Sims, and you'll be quite stunned. While the core structure of The Sims was kept deliberately simple, the final product still took far too many hours to create.

So as far as Will and the team are concerned, they took the game as far as was possible at the time. The limitations we see today are the limitations of the scale of a first project -- and how much investors were willing to put money into a single game.

To be honest, even with all its limitations, The Sims (the core gameplay experience) is a very well balanced game, encouraging the players' imagination, and an incredible project, very advanced for its time. It also proved that simulation can create a popular entertainment product (and that is what led to its later downfall in quality, under EA's direction/leadership).

And I may be wrong, but I don't think that Will was particularly hyped about The Sims 2. I think that by that time, he had other projects in mind. The Sims 2 feels like an EA product, not like a core Maxis product if you ask me: there is nothing in terms of the simulation that The Sims 2 does more innovatively than The Sims 1 -- even if it is closer to the original game design than the later EA games in the series. It just continues what was already established in The Sims 1, and adds more features to it (such as generations), with a complete graphics overhaul to full 3D (which the original development team was actually against, as they thought that a full 3D world would distract from the gameplay).



While I agree with most of what you've said, this baffles me. It's possible that I am lacking insight into all the features of Livin' Large, but I haven't seen anything in Livin' Large that expands the core gameplay in the way that you are describing it above.

To me, Livin' Large was always about adding more fun (weird and quirky) variety to the game. More fictional stories -- science fiction, fantasy, horror.

As I've mentioned in another thread, House Party actually added most of the normal content from Livin' Large into the game (including the extra careers), leaving Livin' Large only for the quirky fiction stuff, essentially.

That said, I would love to be wrong. I would be very interested to hear what you have experienced and know about Livin' Large that expands the core gameplay. For example:

1. What are the new, worthwhile social interactions you've mentioned?
2. What are the new (pricey) objects that have a normal theme?
3. Apart from new careers (which were also included in House Party), and a few extra skins, what else does Livin' Large add to the core gameplay?

Unless Livin' Large actually added anything to the core gameplay in the game that House Party didn't, I would not roll Livin' Large into this first category you've set -- for expanding the core Sims gameplay.

Instead, I would roll it in with the later conversion packs -- even though it came as the first "expansion pack" to the game.

The rest I pretty much completely agree with you on. And I think you made some very good points. I agree that you could roll House Party into its own category, and divide the actual expansions into two categories: one that focuses on home lots, and one that focuses on away lots.

If you really want to go completely pure with the core gameplay experience, then The Sims, or The Sims and House Party are it. Because Hot Date and Vacation are based on SimCity expansion concepts from the SimsVille project.

The original game was not designed with away lots in mind. They scrapped that idea very early on in the project, because it was too ambitious. That's why the sims don't have their own cars.

My sim mode!
https://simcity.fandom.com/wiki/My_Sim_mode
I had lots of fun with that.

Hi again! What a pleasure to read you both, @simsample and @kenoi! The My Sim mode was indeed very fun, and I like to think some concepts were crossed between the Simcity and Sims team while making Simcity 4!

@kenoi, I agree Hot Date is the most developed EP of the original Sims. ALthough it reportedly expands on the romance system, I agree is an overhaul of all aspects of the game, and introduces a simple concept to the game: freetime. Up to House Party, all objects in the game have an aesthetic and fun value, right, but they all serve a purpouse for the sims themselves: either skilling or tending to their needs. Downtown is a place to simply spend time, buying things and meeting other characters; sims got no special benefit from new clothes, gifts or eating outside instead of home.

On the subject of Livin' Large, we should consider it was a bundle of several of the free downloads the original website had, plus more. There are objects that serve no purpouse, apart from entertaining you and the sims: the rocket, the Santa Claus sytsem, the charade game... my theory is that those are intended to be used as new group activities for sims, offering them more ways to socialize ─apart from eating and watching TV. Plus it offers a game-changer: calling sims just for talking, instead of inviting them over. It's a little expansion on the social aspect of The Sims (plus, the new careers require considerably more friends, if I remember correctly). Not to the extent of Hot Date, however. I would say the Maxis team did that better with the following EP.

Livin' Large supposedly comes with more social interactions, but I haven't been able to find a list of those, though.

On the topic of Will Wright, I recall seeing lots of publicity saying he was involved in TS2, but that may have been an exaggeration (maybe he was involved in the sense of "he saw the project and gave his thumbs up"). You clearly seem to know more than I tee hee.

Now, the last three expansion packs really pique my interest. What were the Maxis team going for? Clearly they don't follow the concept or the style from the first expansion packs (other than having a ___ Town new location), but I really would like to hear some opinions on them.

Hope I' m not being to obtuse myself!! Tee hee

Exactly. Hot Date was the first time you could actually take your sims out of their daily life cycle (out of the core gameplay), and have fun exploring a new area and spending time away from your game/lot. But it came with a cost: during your time away, your sim would spend all their energy, so when they came back to the home lot, they would be exhausted, and you would need to spend time getting them back into shape again. In a word, they would be incapacitated -- taken out of the game as a player/character for a short time. This was the price to pay for having the luxury of leaving the household (the core gameplay) -- and this is what tied it back to the core gameplay.

I remember we were all incredibly excited when Hot Date came out. The concept of being able to explore an entirely new area in The Sims was mind-blowing to us. It was like being told that there's an expansion pack for your favourite game that instead of letting you visit one small region, lets you explore an entire, expansive living world, in today's terms.

That concept faded as the years rolled on and players got used to more vast video game landscapes/worlds, but Downtown still has its special place in all our hearts, I think. And it has to do with its well designed theme (centred on romance/dating) and how it ties with the core gameplay. Hot Date also gave us a lot more fun with the game, with its romantic interactions and more dynamic relationships.

Then Vacation took that further, and provided something of its own: an ability for your sim family to play a different, lighter gameplay while spending time away from their home lot for an extended time -- giving you a chance to take a break, variety, a vacation. And on top, more parent-child opportunities/interactions.

So Hot Date lets you step out of the core gameplay for a short time, while Vacation lets you take an extended time out from the core gameplay.

Seeing as how intense the core gameplay in the original Sims actually is, these were welcome additions/expansions to the game.

In the original game, the only time you get to take time off from the flow of the core gameplay is when you are redesigning/renovating your house.

That's how these two expansion packs tie back into the core gameplay of The Sims.



Yes, but House Party introduces these very same features as well.



Yes, this is why I don't believe that Livin' Large has what people generally claim it has. I think the confusion comes from the fact that Livin' Large did come with new careers and social interaction options at the time it was released, but those very same features were then also featured in House Party later.

I see a lot of websites listing Livin' Large as responsible for adding these features to the game, but they fail to mention that House Party adds them as well, just the same.

So the release of House Party onwards, you did not need Livin' Large to have those features added to your game. You only needed Livin' Large for the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror elements. But because Livin' Large came bundled with most Sims sales, most people never realised that they can actually go without it if they use House Party only, and build their game from there.

Maxis provided the expanded core gameplay experience both with Livin' Large, and with House Party -- with House Party adding even more features to it (in terms of group social activities).

But, as I mentioned in the other thread, later conversion packs actually build on Livin' Large. So if you are playing a fantasy-themed Sims game, Livin' Large is still worth installing then. It adds more fantasy-themed variety to the game.



I think he was involved with it like he was involved with SimCity 2000 while working on The Sims. He was compelled into working on it because of his working obligations. (Maxis actually forced him to work on SimCity 2000, because they believed it will be a bigger seller than The Sims.)

You can get a good glimpse of what was going on behind the scenes during the design and development of the original Sims game in these honest interviews with Will:

https://archive.org/details/Will_Wr...Special_Edition

https://archive.org/details/ques1

And these helpful videos about the original experience and history of the game, and behind the making of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsob06m9p_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm1JNPapzj4

There's also this excellent lecture given by Will on game design, if you're interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdgQyq3hEPo



After Vacation, I believe that further "expansion" packs were handed over to be developed by Maxis on behalf of EA, and Will was not overseeing their design and development closely.

Unleashed was inspired by the demands/requests of the community. By that time, countless pet objects were created for the game by the community, all made from a pre-release object, the "duck" object, turned into a pet object at SimFreaks and Sims Plus, called Max the Dog. So EA figured that there was demand for a pet-focused Sims expansion. Similarly, farming was another area of interest in the community, with Persimmon Grove's content having come out as a major inspiration in the community. EA/Maxis were just following what seemed most in-demand for the game with the community.

Superstar was a conversion pack created to appeal to teenagers, mostly. I guess that EA figured in their market metrics somehow that this was a big market for a Sims expansion. It introduced well-known teenage celebrities of that time to the game, such as Christina Aguilera, and Avril Lavigne. It's an expansion pack made for the celebrity life -- if you want to make your sim famous.

Makin' Magic came out just after the initial success of the Harry Potter films. It caters to fans of shows like Charmed, and primarily Harry Potter fans. It was made to capitalise on the flowering popular fantasy market at the time. (Which was later continued by Twilight, etc. -- and is still active to this day: Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, etc.) It lets you live out such a fantasy adventure within The Sims' world.

So the last three "expansion" (conversion) packs were conceptualised more by EA's marketing team than by Will and his team, I'm convinced.

You see the same pattern continue with the later Sims sequels and their expansions. So I think EA took over at Unleashed.

I think that Will and the original team were done with The Sims when Vacation came out, really. As you've stated yourself, Unleashed feels like a mixed bag, and all "expansion" packs after that feel like they came from a different team/universe. I think that's not a coincidence.



You're not being obtuse at all. These are valid questions to ask. I think more people should ask them.

I found this photo online, which shows the Sims 1 expansions and conversions in order, and grouped just right:



It starts with the lower row, lying down, moving from left to right, and then moves to the upper row for the conversion packs, left to right. Interestingly, it's missing Livin' Large.

(When installing the expansion/conversion packs, Livin' Large needs to be installed first, before any of the other ones, if you want to have it in your game.)

The box design/art was gorgeous for them. (Especially for House Party, Hot Date, and Vacation: the blue, red, and yellow primary colours.)

Unleashed should really have been green, not baby blue (cyan), if it was following the same logic. (Superstar should have been a vibrant light purple or crimson, and Makin' Magic should have been orange or brown, probably.)