Okay, so while there have already been multiple threads for speculating on Sims 4 or what we want to see in Sims 4, I thought I'd try something a little different. I'd like to get everyone talking about what the next step in the series' evolution should be. What needs to be done to make TS4 as fresh and innovative as the original Sims?

So, basically I want people to really think about what TS4 is going to be. Where do we go from here? What new gameplay could TS4 have that we could never see in TS3? What huge leap forward could justify moving on from TS3? What will it take to get those of us who have gotten fed up EA/Maxis to buy TS4?

It should never require a connection to the Internet in order to work.

A game that doesn't require players modding the hell out of it just to make it PLAYABLE, let alone extra features. Features to be in the game from the start like someone else mentioned: uni, seasons, late night, generations-type stuff, etc. I shouldn't have to pay more money for them, blegh.

THIS IS ALL I ASK REQUIRE.

Also a way to 'connect' towns/worlds without using Traveler. Like, you're playing Sunset Valley in one game and can take a drive over to Riverview.

You shouldn't hold your breath on this one. People are going to buy TS4 (if there ever will be a S4). There will always be those who hate EA/Maxis and still buy and play it (I'm not one of those, I like TS3).

I think TS4 (again, if there will be a S4) will follow the same routine as TS1, 2, and 3. TS3 has WA, TS2 had Bon Voyage, TS1 had Vacation; TS3 has Pets, TS2 had Pets, and of course, TS1 had Unleashed; and so on. See the pattern? I think TS4 will be the same way....you'll just have to spend 1,200 bucks or more on the PC you're gonna play it on. The system requirements will probably double, if not triple, that of TS3.

The one thing that I am 99.99% possitive that TS4 will definately require, like the new SimCity, is an internet connection. If anything throws TS4 to the waste side, it will be that. But I doubt it. Everyone said the same about SimCity ("I won't buy it if...) and still it sold like crazy. I, myself, have nothing against it. But that's me.

But, what would I like to see? Let's see.....
Build/Buy mode: I want more angles to build my walls, not just 45 and 90 degrees. And circular walls, with windows to fit. I want to be able to slide the windows up or down (like you can do with the pictures) to my liking. Trees, shrubs, grass, flowers that all grow and need trimming (picture your sim(s) on a lawn mower...I like it). Place stairs at any angle. Have U and L shaped stairs (as much as I love CFE I think I should be able to just pick and place the U and L stairs).

Live mode: The only thing that I miss from TS2: to be able to get in and out of the cars. While cooking the sims can do other things, not just stand in front of the stove and wait for it. More woohoo animations (the kind I speak of would change the Teen rate of the game to Mature). Woohoo on the couch, on the floor; and positions. Sims can have broken bones and bleed. Car accidents. Oh, man, I could go on and on....

NO SUBHOODS! While it sort of makes sense for vacation worlds, it totally doesn't work for University. There's gotta be a better way to integrate travel between hoods.

I've always wanted a few themes and ideas from SimCity to play a role in the Sims without the game taking on a SimCity nature, but to give the game some depth. How the world around them effects them and how Sims effect the world as well.

Things I'd like to see in the worlds/towns/hood are things like a Power Source for the town (such as Power Plants, Windmills, etc.), Water Pumps, Radio Towers, Types of Schools + Buildings - things like that. All of those things have effects on Sims, how often they get sick, how often the power goes out or if they get power at all, how smart Sims in town can be. Also, what types of Sims are drawn/spawned in town.

I could add more stuff, but it'd just be taking things from SimCity.

But, don't you see? That's their sole purpose: to make you pay for it. As much as I love the idea, we know it's not going to be that way. Unfortunately.

You know, these speculative posts are always a bit discouraging, because what we think and what EA thinks is two different things.

I belong to the group of people who do believe TS4 will be online, but the way Ea might sell it to us is, interconnectivity between players. You can send your sim to another simmer's town and actually play there. SHT had this in a way, that you could send your sim to another player's town, but you couldn't see what they did there.


I'm not fed up with EA/Maxis but TS4 has to be super extraordinary amazing for me to switch and stop playing TS3 and start again with a base game. I play so slow I honestly haven't done even half the things you can do in the game, like currently I'm playing my first household with winter, it took me 5 RL months to play through the autumn round in my hood. So when it comes to new stuff, I still have a lot of new stuff in TS3 as well.

sims to age gradually rather than one second be a child to next a teen within seconds.

They still have life stages, etc but could still age gradually up and quietly the game could inform you that the teen is now at the YA stage

But to be honest, i know in my hearts of hearts that the sims 4 is just going to be a repeat of sims 3. The seasons expansion pack makes a lot of money for EA as does pets etc so they wont be in the base game and will always be sold as an expansion pack. Honestly, I can't be bothered starting all over again and waiting for each expansion pack to come out just to get the feeling that my games complete... Seasons expansion pack should have come earlier on in the series. It took me until seasons until i felt the game has become the game I want it to be... and now we are moving onto sims 4? its really annoying.

I can tell you one thing that is for sure. Its going to be an online thing, and with all the store premium content opportunities, it is going to be one big drain on your bank account sista, because now they found out how well the P.C stuff sells... it wouldn't surprise me if they start taking all the good objects out of the game we had previously and sold it all separately for a nice price of $10

I really do believe the Sims series has had its day, and from now on its going to get colder and colder and a bit stale. Now unless EA fix their priorities then I honestly believe that more and more are going to lose interest. I've been a simmer since the first game got released, and throughout the sims 1 all the way to sims ambitions i've noticed a real decline in the sims series in the sense that the simming community used to be really massive... it still is in a way but not like it was back in the day. Even this site was very busy. I hope i'm wrong about this, but i honestly do think by this time, In the sims 4 series... it will be a little bit more quieter than it is just now. They gotta start putting more effort into the game, because sims 3 is a bit lazy in some ways... I know its an improvement compared to the sims 2, but the sims 2 back in its day was somewhat perfect for the technology that was available. Yes there were glitches, but for a game that had the limits it had, it really took advantage of those limits and gave us a product to be proud of considering the time it was released and the computers that were available.

Blegh im in a rant mood today! I would love it if the sims team started to reach out to the modding community more. It really irritates me that perfectly good modders such as twallan have not been hired yet considering he basically fixed the games in ways they could not yet they decide to (and i dont mean to be nasty) reach out to curtis paradis who is just a youtube personality who doesn't bring much to the community except for entertainment value and annoyance. He aint making my game play any better! But Twallan is!

TS4 will have online features.. it's just going to.

Hopefully, however, EA will be smart enough to have an offline-only mode.
(I'll tell you one thing, though - the Modding Community for Sims will crack any online-only limitation faster than they can imagine; have no worries.)

Full integration with SC5.

Oh, I get it from a business aspect. Not having Seasons in the base game was 'genius' for that reason. Same with Uni -- they knew people would pay for it, so they gave it.

But it especially grinds my gears that Generations interactions, objects, and other things weren't in the base game. Other stuff, I can almost justify and understand. But that EP (and Ambitions, probs)... yeesh.

Perhaps they could make an expansion pack for older players. I'm not talking about really graphical stuff but lets face it, there are younger players and there are older players and the playstyle for 10+ year-old and for 20-30+ are completely different. Sims 2 was slightly better in this but Sims 3 is for 20-30+ player like a playing Disney's ToyStory. Even the slightest quirkiness - while dansing, etc. - were completely ripped off. The Sims 3 dancing interaction is a poor excuse compared to Sims 2 one. So basically all I'm saying is that they should take notice of us 20-30+ players, as well, because we are numerous.

Some EPs I can give them a free pass with. Like I could buy it that it took a lot of man-hours to program the Pets AI for the new game. Fine, I can pay for that.

What gets my goat more is the item store, and especially the day one DLC. TS3 or for that matter SC5 were shipped with a pittance of items or respectively buildings, but it was hard not to notice that right from the start there were at least twice as many available as DLC. And that makes it hard not to feel like EA cut out half the game (actually probably more) and made me pay full price for what was left.

I can get the microtransactions as main income stream for FREE games. I understand why Farmville needs to try to sell you recoloured barns, or why STO tries to sell overpowered ships. They have to get their money somehow. It may not make me want to play their game, but I can understand it. But if I pay 60 bucks for a game and it feels like little more than a vehicle to sell me the stuff that should have been in it in the first place, or to advertise more stuff to me, it's just gonna piss me off.

Plus some of that stuff really feels like an insult by itself.

E.g., I have the Diesel Stuff pack, and while it has a couple of new meshes, probably most stuff looks like just a recolour of an existing piece of clothing, with DIESEL written on it. FFS, if I just wanted the current undershirt mesh with DIESEL written on it, or the existing male swimsuit bottom with DIESEL written on the waist band, I could have done it myself in GIMP in ten minutes. Make it five minutes in TS2. And I mean, literally, it's not even some high quality texturing, with some fading and scratching or whatever is appropriate, but just something you can do with the standard text tool in any graphics program. I mean, even the other signs and shirts that are in simmlish, actually have some fancy swirls and whatnot as letters, while this looks like just a standard sans-serif font. And it's not even in simmlish like the rest of the game, so I can't help feeling like I paid just to be advertised to.

gravity should also exist and accidents on falls happen, they should be able to die from that, as well as being able to jump from bridges and cliffs in the water - and would be really cool to throw your Sim from a tall building xD. To make it better, I wouldn't feel bad about giving Sims a first person gaming control, the kind you hit "R" or "up" and the Sim walks forward, sometimes is annoying to make them walk around the city coz you have to click here and there to determine every distance they will run. I prefer just let them walking and control their directions.

We should already start the game being able to explore water world - like Island EP to come - AND air. What about sports like skydiving and such? And helicopters should be brought back, and we should properly be able to drive them or have a proper vision from above. I don't think that should be too difficult since they already made a way to have the sims tile-independent with the boat houses, in which tiles move... and we are exploring the air system all the time while building or watching the city, so why not put our sims up there too?

And sorry guys but the game is undoubtedly going to have online features, is impossible to do not think there will be, we just don't know how it will be. Btw, are the rumors about hiring designers to work on online programming true or not?

For me to be interested in TS4, something in it will have to be a game changer. The game changer I wanted from the first month I played The Sims 1 was an open world. TS2 didn't deliver that, but it did go 3d which I loved.. TS3 gave me my open world. There are things that I think would be cool to update and fix, yeah, but honestly, nothing comes to mind that is worth rebuying the same regurgitated expansion packs AGAIN.

Like others, I think that some idget at EA believes that "online play" will be the "game changer" and I honestly hope they do it, and the game fails so miserably that they lose massive amounts of money and that idget gets fired, has a mid-life crisis and lives out the remainder of his life quietly, far away from the gaming world in the seclusion of his mothers basement.. Then, EA decides the sims franchise is simply dead and they sell it to some smaller company who would actually love it and place quality as their prime priority; they'd never sell regurgitated material, seasons, pets ect would come with the base game, and they'd challenge themselves that EP's be more than money making clones, but rather always new innovation and truly new game expansions.

So yeah, I am not saying it can't happen, but I really am uninterested in paying more money for a bunch of crap I already have. And online - no thanks, not interested in the least.

A coherent and broad design plan for at least the first 6 eps. In short, an ability to direct which features should go where much better than has been the case in TS3. What makes sense where? The Sims team should be asking themselves this more, because it's one of their biggest problems throughout TS3, tacking elements into EPs where they make no sense, and leaving elements out of EPs where they would make sense. Stress to the engineers that they must build systems with the future in mind. If they do something like design bands but don't have the budget to include singing, they should look ahead and design so that laying that element in in a later EP is feasible if not planned for.

Firmer, more pedestrian themes for EPs that build up the game space elegantly. Focus on establishing the core environmental features FIRST rather than many packs in. Base game -> Seasons should be the very first two, then branch out into careers, families, romance, economy, types of living spaces/residential lots - the day to day foundations. Then, finally, with that base established firmly, branch into the crazier more ephemeral themes like World Adventures, Showtime, Supernatural, etc.

Speaking of economy... ...some minor economic simulation would breathe a lot of interest into the town. For example, perhaps if you're selling heaps of carrots and so are all the townie gardeners then the prices will go down, if you buy up heaps of carrots the prices will go up. A little bit of supply and demand in the town would lend interest and lay a base for more sandbox play.

Something new huh? How about sims being able to scoot across the freaking double beds? (And no, I am never letting this go)

And for love of everything, a better AI and no required internet connection.

Face it, everybody: it is going to happen whether you want it or not. An internet connection will be required to play the game. That's all. It...is...going...to...happen.

TS4 will probably require an internet connection like SC5. I mean if you look at the Sims 3 now, they almost force you to log in before you play and you can share every bs online.

Online-only again?

I seem to have missed the part where this thread is different than the other Sims 4 threads. They all seem to be about what went wrong with Sims 3 and SimCity 2013.

While I have a feeling that EA will go further down the "play with friends!" rabbit hole, personally what would make The Sims 4 stand out to me would be greater depth in sims. TS3 did a great job with customization, and I don't think we need a ton more, but I think that sims' personalities definitely took a step back. If we could see a system that makes each sim more unique and makes them interact with the world more uniquely, I'll be sold.

However, there will obviously be people who don't want too much autonomy from their sims. I'd like sims to have more individuality, to say "no, I will not enjoy this activity" or "no, I refuse to like this sim" but others will want to make their sims do whatever. Rather than give sims traits, then make those traits null for the sake of player control, I think we should see a new slider in addition to sim autonomy that controls how much a sim's personality effects what they do. So with the slider at full, sims might never do certain things based on their personality, and with the slider at lowest, sims would not be limited by their personality.