RE: Paralives, I was initially very excited just at the prospect of a Sims competitor, but it's taken a backseat somewhat over time and I'm not gonna be overly attentive until I understand what gameplay looks like. Build mode and create-a-sim don't really grab me, and all of those things seem like the "easy part" compared to creating an engaging game with depth. I wish them luck, though. I still pop in every so often to see where they're at. It's hard to overstate the scale of a project like this, maybe that's why no real competitors have popped up since the inception of the Sims franchise? I don't know! I'm not a game dev, hehe.

Back to LbY, the more I look at the teaser the more I'm deciding I like the visuals. The interiors are a bit goofy looking proportionately (?) but that's an easy fix and the outdoor areas are actually really nice.. I was surprised to see people say they preferred the cartoony approach. I can't wait to see the "sims" up close. Only a couple of days now!

I'm actually a bit more excited about Paralives since it feels and looks very different from the Sims with new ideas and a somewhat different approach. With both, it's too early to really to say, but the teaser from Paradox felt more like a modern looking Sims3 to me. And while that's nice, that's not enough for me to spend a lot of money and deal with patches and updates continuously for years.
My problem is that it feels like with all the DLC, I spend more time maintaining, updating and dealing with updates than actually enjoying playing. And I don't have much time to play, so I'd rather wait until a game is done with all that.
Paralives gives me the impression that they aim for a broader base with more things already in the basegame with the updates/upgrades being more minor add-ons but I might be wrong.

I have Sims3 and I can see myself playing that game for a very long time. So, whoever is next, they better give me a good reason to deal with all that again.

Or I might end up playing them all eventually. When I'm retired, maybe.

Life by You outdoors seems so pretty and realistic with the Ambient Occlusion...but the interiors, the cars, and the sims are cruddy for now ...I hope the graphics will be better later. because yerk !!
However the gameplay already got yoga !! We got beaches...seems interesting.

Well, tomorrow we'll know more, right?

I'm working during the livestream :') Grrr

I'm watching the livestream- There's a trailer at the beginning-
The game is completely open, no loadscreens, you can edit anything by just clicking on it and freely switch between sims. There is a region editor so that you can fully build a world, add businesses and people...

[Editing as it goes on]
Emergent storytelling, you can eavesdrop on people... There's a conversation creator so that you can edit or create dialog... Bulk edit and import/ export dialog, share it with other players...

Object editor- you can add, change or attach functionality to objects- you can create scripts to add your own custom functionality... They will be revealing a model editor in coming months so that you can make your own models...

All editors will be included with the game, there will be a quest editor...

You can preorder the game now... On Epic and Steam.

The creators realise that a life creator is a huge thing and so set out to create a game that has the tools for people to create their own content.

People who preorder will get bonus pack of content, plus early access to the game. Also the first 100,000 who order will get access to a discord channel to give feedback and suggestions.

Character creator- lot creator- town creator- conversation creator- event creator- item creator- shop creator- object creator- mod creator- career creator- quest creator- script creator- gameplay creator- recipe creator- skill creator- trait creator- crafting creator- collectible creator- outfit creator- household creator- story creator- Life creator!



Rewatching to pickup everything I missed-
There's a trailer at the beginning and end of the stream.

OMG Memories!
Skateboards, cars, motorbikes, bicycles.
Everywhere in the world is accessible.
You can click to move, and your agent will move there of their own accord, or you can engage direct control mode where you can drive or move by using arrow keys as you can in an RPG.
Spawnables and collectibles.
NO RABBITHOLES! Which was my fear when I heard Rod Humble was in charge!
It's open in terms of time as well as space! You can fast forward ten years if you want to!

Not gonna lie, it looks and sounds like a really fun game so far...

But I am REALLY not feeling the art style. At least for the humans



Of course, depending on when this comes out, it's subject to change (in fact I just reached a point in the stream where they said they'd polish the visuals). But so far the art style and the animations feel more like the product of a small time indie game than Paralives does, IMO

The customization options are out of this freakin world though! And probably the most mod friendly of all three life simulators. I'm really impressed with that.

Life By You and Paralives both feel more like TS3 successors than TS4 does.

Yeah, I'm not feeling the artstyle for the humans either (but at the same time it could have been so much worse) and I don't think I like the idea of "real conversations" right now. How would that work if I control both ends of it?

But at the very least it does look better than Sims 3 (shops aren't rabbit holes, you can edit the world freely and add lots) and something I'm really excited about is the degree of customization and easy access modding this seems to have.

Still I think I like Paralives better now, this looks like it might be too realistic for me. But I do try to keep an open mind and see how it turns out.

Yeah, the way you can change everything , including all dialogue if you want to (which lets you create different language packs) and how you can change objects scripting. This is really cool. I actually like the graphics, but to be fair I am very forgiving on that front. It was a bit weird that the dialogue wasn't audible though, but maybe this was a choice based on using a real language. Or it is just not present in this preview. Placing and moving lots also seems very powerful and easy to use.

Still, I am a bit wary. The preorder was already mentioning several 'free' packs. So, I guess DLC has already started before Early Access.

You can rewatch the livestream here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmUQfTodoE

You can download other people's dialog creations, of course!

I have to say I am loving every single thing about this at the moment, I love it so much I might even let Rod Humble back in my Sims 2 game!

No, I mean if I have two characters I control have a conversation with each other. Do I then pick the dialogue options for both of them?


In general I think the biggest plus right now for me is the modding accessibility. I like to do small mods for the Paradox games I have and depending on how powerful this is, I think I could have a lot of fun with this.

I assume it will work like in other sims game. You chose the dialogue for the sim you control. Which is just one sim at a time. The other will give a reponse based on that emergent dialogue system they mentioned.

No, the AI chooses from the thousands of dialog possibilities. They used the word emergent- generated based off your unique situation. No two conversations will be alike (I'm quoting Game from the livestream).
They also mentioned drag and drop for conversations. Edit- this was referring to the conversation editor I think.

For those who missed the livestream and want a summary, I typed some stuff here:
https://modthesims.info/showthread....383#post5883383

Rewatch the livestream including the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmUQfTodoE

I loved it!

Wow, the game gives a lot of space for creativity. Open worlds, no loading screens, easily accessible character management and so much other things. I'm quite overwhelmed right now :D
The game look gorgeous, except "new sims" a little bit robotic and uncanny. Huh, maybe modding community find way to make them better just like sims 3 sims
So far everything is good.

What I appreciate most of all about this is that the presenters of the livestream talked to us like adults, and gave us actual information. They did not talk like kid's TV presenters, and they didn't start with 'Heyyyyyy guys! Oh wow, we have so many cooooool things to show you guys right now! Oh wow, you guys are going to looooove this so much, we hope you guys really like it as much as us guys do..."

We can shop! There is one little thing. I didn't see any pool on the lots.

I love it! Who cares if the art style isn't better than Sims 4 (and I don't necessarily agree with that assessment either), this game's winning feature is that it will offer immense play value, with OPEN WORLD, extensive customization, and all these interactions with other characters. It's exactly what I want – I want to move around in a world where I can see other characters' antics.

These are the things that I noticed from the trailer:

I actually like the overall look of the characters, even though they look like Sims from TS3 to me.

There is a drink need which I like very much, but sadly there is no environment need.

I kind of fear that all of the characters will be permanently stuck with a phone because I noticed that a child has a phone, but maybe the parents bought it for her.

Everything looks so beautiful! The meshes have realistic textures which I like very much.

Some of the animations are clipping a lot. For example, the couple that was kissing did not actually... kiss.

The lots have traits and from what I observed there is no rabbitholes. The characters actually shop for clothes which is great to me because that adds a little bit of challenge.

There are only two bodyshapes which is disappointing and that probbably means there is no height slider.

There actually is a height slider because I noticed that all of the characters are not of the same height!

You can own businesses such as a salon. There are also hotels because one of the characters shown in the character creator section of the video owns a boutique hotel!

There is a car dealership which is like a place where you buy cars.

Links and screenshots from the livestream!

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/...fe-by-you/about
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9c3WEYTJIU
Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmUQfTodoE

Screenshots attached; any crappy quality is purely due to my potato computer.

On the graphics front, I'm really enjoying the general scenery/lighting. It's not stylistically restrictive and you could easily convert items into the game w/o worrying about if they "fit" or not. The characters look extremely strange in terms of their proportions, their animations are very stiff and unnatural. I hope they intend to add facial expressions, because the dead stare+flapping jaw combo aren't doing it for me. I feel like having non-uncanny valley characters is very important in a game of this nature, since you're gonna spend so much time looking at them. I'm guessing that's an easy fix, though, wether it's modders or the devs themselves that end up tweaking it.

I'm super intrigued by the rpg style dialogue system, I just hope it doesn't collapse under its own complexity. I'm personally a little intimidated just thinking about the scale of it. I'm excited at the prospect of being able to do lore specific dialogue, like if you wanted to recreate a universe from another franchise or even a project of your own. The world building potential there is absolutely nuts. I'm a huge sucker for themed saves and would love to do a historical town or something. I didn't catch if they mentioned the possibility of doing quests or not, but how fun would that be from a modding perspective? So many questions.

Also, am I tweaking or did they not mention the release date in the livestream? I'm going with what's on the steam page. It's also weird to me that it seems to be available on steam but that the pre-order is Epic Games only? That's just gonna make me wait til release to spend money on it :p

OH, one last thing. I'm glad to say this actually feels like a completely distinct game from The Sims.

Hmmm. I've been quiet about this as I wanted to see more versus falling into the speculation trap.

The art style will take time to grow on me. But from the environment perspective, it is nice to see texture. There are no polygon pink trees.

I hope when they use the word "quest' that means players create their own and does not mean yet another game with a text list telling players what they should be doing. They are claiming this to be open sandbox, then nobody should feel like the dev team is sitting on their shoulders telling them what to do.

They kept saying that the pre-order was on Epic, but they also have a clickable link to Steam. I would think if they had links to both that would mean it would be available on both. They didn't say anything about this being Epic exclusive, but should it turn into that, that will result in a hard no from me.

Other than that, I'll be watching and rooting for them. EA desperately needs the competition...

I just realized the vibe I was getting from the characters was GTA online